


Overnight Sensation

by second_chances



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Olympics, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:04:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7827907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/second_chances/pseuds/second_chances
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren, swimming legend, media darling, known asshole, is chasing his grandfather's medal record in his fourth Olympics.</p><p>Rey Niima, nineteen-year-old nobody, proud new owner of two gold medals, is breaking records and grabbing the attention of the world in her first Olympics. The attention that's not riveted on Kylo Ren, that is.</p><p>Or, the media dubs Rey 'the female Kylo Ren' and Rey's <i>had enough<i>.</i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Female Kylo Ren

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LISTEN this is entirely Adam Driver's fault for having A SWIMMER'S BODY.

_“In the third day of swimming competition here in Los Angeles, Kylo Ren nabbed his third gold of these games in the 200-meter freestyle, bringing his total medal count up to 25, three medals shy of his grandfather’s record 28. He still has five days of competition left to break that record, with a rigorous schedule that will likely have him swimming in at least one final each day. History is being made here, folks, and Ren hasn’t said whether these are his last Olympics or not. We may get the chance to watch him break Anakin Skywalker’s old record here, then widen his medal count margin even further four years from now. Tomorrow, you can watch Ren in the 100 free semifinal and 4x200 relay final._

_On the women’s side, first-time Olympian Rey Niima qualified for the 200 free final tomorrow. This comes, of course, after she shattered the world record in the 400 free last night to win gold, her second of these games. In the 100 backstroke final, Kaydel Ko Connix_ — _”_

Rey stabbed her finger against her phone screen to pause the video, thrusting it back across the table into Poe and Finn’s faces even though there was now nothing to see but the news anchor’s frozen face.

“Can you believe this?” she demanded.

Finn and Poe exchanged glances, and Rey would’ve thought they were unsure what she was getting at, if it weren’t so _obvious_. That and Finn’s mischievous grin when he turned back to her. “I can actually, I can _absolutely_ believe that you’re a world-record-breaking, incredible swimmer.”

Rey huffed out a breath, shaking her phone violently. “That’s not the point!”

Poe shoved an entire pancake into his mouth and grinned around it. “Have some pity on the newbie, Finn. She’s not jaded yet.” Poe turned to her, sympathy in his warm brown eyes. “Ren gets more media attention than the rest of us combined. Better get used to it, kid.”

“I’m not mad for _me_ ,” Rey said indignantly, shifting her eyes between the skeptical expressions on her friends’ faces. “Okay, fine, maybe a little bit. But you guys were in that relay with him on Sunday. He won gold thanks to _you_ , but they don’t even talk about the rest of the team. Did they even ask you any questions after the race, or just him?”

Finn grinned again, incorrigible as ever. “Hey, I got a full five seconds of screentime and maybe ten words in, something about _the honor of racing with these guys_. Dameron got more, though. I think it’s the hair. Or maybe his advanced age.” He elbowed Poe in the side, and the other man shoved his arm away good-naturedly.

“It just seems _wrong_ that even Anakin Skywalker, who’s been _dead for thirty years_ , is getting more attention at these games than living athletes who are actually here winning medals.”

Poe shrugged, stabbing his fork into the huge pile of scrambled eggs on his plate. “Skywalker’s a legend.”

“He was a terrible person!” Rey had never considered Anakin a heroic figure in the sport, despite his accomplishments. He’d sacrificed his entire family to be the best, his health, probably his sanity, and in the end, his life. Luke Skywalker was the kind of swimmer she wanted to emulate. So what if he hadn’t broken his father’s records—although he’d been well on his way to doing so before he unexpectedly retired a mere ten years into his competitive career. He’d recognized what it was doing to him and—rather than go the way of his father—he’d gotten out while he still could. Rey found that kind of perspective and self-awareness far more admirable than this all-consuming drive to be the best in history despite all casualties along the way.

Poe was shrugging again. “When you’re that good, nobody really cares if you’re an asshole.” He raised an eyebrow. “Except maybe the people who have to deal with you in real life.”

“I’m just glad we didn’t have to room with him this time,” Finn mumbled around a large mouthful of his third Big Mac of the morning. “Remember when he punched a hole through the bathroom door after he got that silver in the medley in Tokyo?”

“Hey, speaking of tempers.” Poe shifted in his seat to pull his phone out of his pocket, giving it a few taps as he searched for something. “There’s one specific interview _I_ want to watch.”

Rey suddenly found her waffles incredibly interesting, grabbing her knife and fork to cut them up into far tinier pieces than necessary.

“Ah, there we go.” He’d pulled up a YouTube video, pressing play just as Rey looked up and narrowed her eyes to glare at it.

There she was, fresh from the pool after her record-breaking swim, hair a wet tangle over her shoulder, out of breath and with the hugest smile on her face she’d ever seen. Well, it’d been nice while it lasted.

_“Rey, you did great at the World Championships last year, but how does it feel to already have two gold medals at your first Olympics?” the reporter asked, a vapid smile on her face._

_Rey beamed. “It feels great. I can’t even_ — _great doesn’t even describe it. I’ve been working so hard for this, I’m so glad I’ve been able to come out here swimming my best, the team’s been swimming our best, it’s awesome.”_

_“Now, you’re only nineteen, definitely up-and-coming, but people are already comparing you to some of the all-time greats. Some people are even dubbing you the female Kylo Ren. How do you feel about that?”_

Rey remembered how beatifically the reporter had smiled at her as she said that, like she was giving Rey some amazing compliment that she didn’t deserve. Rey scowled at the memory, just in time to see her huge smile on the screen transform into a frown as well, in what was also probably world-record time.

_“Um,” she said, looking more puzzled than angry for the moment, which was a miracle. “I feel like that’s inaccurate. I’m not the female anybody, I’m just myself.”_

_The reporter blinked a couple of times, clearly at a loss for words, and kept the microphone at Rey’s mouth, all but forcing her to keep talking._

_Rey shifted on her feet. “I’m not trying to be like anybody. I’m just doing my own thing here.”_

_But instead of thanking her and letting her go, the reporter was like a bloodhound who’d caught an interesting scent. “A lot of the young swimmers here have said Kylo’s been their swimming idol since they were kids. Would you say that’s true for you?”_

_Rey’s eyebrows furrowed. “No, actually, I was always more of a Luke Skywalker fan. The Kylo Ren comparisons don’t really hold water, anyway, he didn’t have two gold medals on the second day of his first Olympics.” Rey smiled winningly and leaned into the microphone. “Thank you!” Then she walked off before the reporter could respond._

Rey hadn’t actually watched the interview until now, so she didn’t know what the reporter had done after she left. She propped her chin in her hands, peeking through her fingers at Poe’s phone.

_“Well,” the reporter said, laughing nervously as she turned to the camera. “Rey Niima, throwing down the gauntlet. Back to you, Dan.”_

Rey groaned, removing her hands from her face as Poe lowered his phone, smirking at her. “Don’t be embarrassed, that was the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

Finn was practically dancing in his seat. “That was the _sickest burn_ anyone’s ever given Ren. Let’s watch it again.” He grabbed the phone out of Poe’s hand, adding as an aside to Rey, “It’s got two million views already. I think half of them are me.”

Rey huffed out a sound somewhere between protestation and amusement. “Ugh, just don’t show me the comments. I don’t need to know the internet thinks I’m a bitch for telling the truth.”

“How about a nice one? Here’s one: 'that was fucking awesome' with....” Finn squinted at the screen. “... _eight_ exclamation points. Here’s another one: ‘Rey’s an inspiration. She started from nowhere, no family swimming lineage, no nepotism. Y’all can call her shady all you want, she’s worked her ass off to get where she is.’ Oh man, and then in all caps, ‘Kylo Ren’s never had a real job in his life!’”

Finn slapped a hand on his knee, briefly dissolving into a fit of hysterical laughter. Poe leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and grinning. Even Rey couldn’t keep a small, reluctant smile from sneaking onto her face.

Once he had himself back under control, Finn propped his elbows on the table, breakfast forgotten, still scrolling through the comments. “Guys, guys, there’s so much great stuff in here. Listen to this: ‘How much do you wanna bet Ren cried when he saw this, just like he cried when Casterfo beat him for gold last Olympics.’”

Rey raised an eyebrow. “Was that the same loss as the door-punching incident?”

“The very one,” Poe said, biting into an apple with a knowing look on his face.

Finn waved a hand in the air to hush them both. “Someone with the username mrsbensolo replied to that comment, ‘you all need to shut the fuck up, like you’ve ever accomplished anything in your lives other than eating a whole bag of Doritos in one sitting and making fun of celebrities on the internet.’ And then there’s just a bunch of people saying ‘Crylo Ren’ over and over.”

Rey pressed her lips together. She remembered _that_. It’d been the biggest meme of the 2020 games, which she kind of felt like even _Kylo Ren_ didn’t deserve. The internet had blown it way out of proportion, anyway—he hadn’t full-on wept or anything, just got a little teary-eyed. But in the sports world, crying was only acceptable for winners, not second-place finishers—and thanks to the merciless scrutiny of the internet, he’d never live that one down. Now that Rey was exposed to the limelight, she found herself feeling a little sympathy for him in that respect—not that he needed it, he who by all outward appearances wore his fame with the easy confidence of someone who didn’t care what people thought of him.

“Oh, oh, here’s mrsbensolo with the comeback, ‘anyone would cry if they lost their TWENTIETH gold by a hundredth of a second’ and then there’s a whole bunch of replies waxing poetic on mrsbensolo’s right to comment on the matter considering her clear bias, because she—and I quote—is obsessed with his hair and wants to suck his—”

Rey made a disgusted sound and yanked the phone out of his hand. “Okay, that’s enough.” She glanced down as she exited the app, and even that split second was enough for her to see a couple unsavory comments about herself. She slid Poe’s phone across the table to him, trying not to grimace.

“Come on, Rey, lighten up.” Finn spread his hands out in front of him. “Did you ever think you’d go _viral_?”

“Ugh.” She dropped her head into her hands, massaging her temples. “That’s half the problem. Once again, something someone else did or said is all about _him_ now.”

Poe chuckled. “Like I said, better get used to it. Ren’s here to stay.”

Rey gave another aggravated sigh and dragged herself up out of her seat. “I gotta get to the aquatic center. I have my 200 final tonight and Unkar’s got me studying race footage all day.”

“I’ll come with you. I have a heat this afternoon.” Poe tossed his apple core onto his plate with a casual flick of his fingers. “You know your coach is a dick, right?”

Rey made a face. “Tell me something I don’t know. Once these games are over hopefully I’ll finally have enough money to fire him and get a coach who doesn’t treat me like shit.”

Finn leaned over the table to give her a high-five. “Good luck, Peanut! I’ll be in the stands cheering you on!” 

* * *

Eight hours later, decked out in her red and blue team jacket, swim caps tightly on her head, Rey paced around the ready room, nodding to the beat of the music coming through her headphones. Everyone had their own pre-swim routine—a lot of people sat down in one of the rows of chairs, but Rey always had too much adrenaline going to stay still. She only stopped in front of the tv once to watch Poe swim his breaststroke semi, then she resumed her slow strolling around the room, back in her zone.

It was nearly time for her to leave for the pool deck when the men’s relay teams descended upon the ready room for their 4x200 final that was immediately after hers. Before she could tell herself not to look, her eyes darted up in their direction, like a magnet drawn to some invisible pole, because _he_ was there.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t spent any time with him. They were on the same team, representing the same country. They’d spent a lot of time in each other’s vicinity leading up to the games, even swimming against a group of their teammates in training at the same time. She’d spoken to him once or twice, briefly. But she doubted she’d really been on his radar, being a relative newbie to the swimming world, while he was a living legend.

But she had a feeling—a hollow, fluttering feeling in her stomach somewhere between anxiety and a weird satisfaction—she was on it now. Probably in a bad way.

Kylo Ren was one of the last men to enter the room, hood up, his trademark long, dark hair tucked safely away in his swim caps. Rey was a big enough person to admit his hair was to die for. It was his one redeeming quality. Swimmers weren’t generally known for their great hair, what with drenching it in chlorine for hours every day. She’d _kill_ to know his haircare regimen, and he’d been asked about it enough times over the years, but he’d always declined to share. Rey figured he’d probably sold his soul to the devil for it, or something.

He took his customary seat in the back corner, game face on as he scowled at nothing in particular (yeah, so he wasn’t Rey’s swimming idol, but she knew his pre-swim routine like the back of her hand—she’d spent the last decade watching it, after all). Remembering the cameras everywhere, that she was on live tv and that her reactions would now be scrutinized more than ever—not to mention she had the race of her life immediately in front of her—Rey pulled her eyes away from him and focused inward again, visualizing every stroke.

She walked out onto the pool deck to deafening roars from the crowd—boosted by the fact that these games were being held on her country’s home turf. She’d done this a handful of times already, but she didn’t think the sound would ever fail to send shivers down her back, or that she’d ever be able to resist raising a hand to wave at them, grinning so widely her cheeks hurt. She took her swimming very seriously, but it was _fun_ too—and it made her happy.

Rey was in lane five since she’d had the second-fastest qualifying time, right in the middle where she liked to be. She stared at the still water in front of her as she carefully adjusted her goggles over her eyes. Her only real competition was the Russian swimmer to her right, as long as she swam as consistently as she normally did. But she didn’t want to just be consistent—not coming off her record-breaking 400m, with the eyes of the world on her. She blew out a slow, centering breath before climbing the block, silently mouthing, “I can do this.”

The starting horn sounded, and she slipped into her swimming zone as she dove in the pool, somehow out of her body and intensely _in_ her body at the same time, so focused she wasn’t even aware where she was in comparison to her competition for the first three lengths. As she turned into the home stretch, she chanced a glance on each side as she took her breaths, and even in this elite field she was at least half a body length ahead of everyone—she could really win this thing—with thirty meters left she found a sudden, hidden reserve of energy and speed and kicked it into another gear, swimming for the wall with everything she had. Her hand made contact and she was spinning to check the board, ripping her goggles off her head before some of the other swimmers had even finished. Distantly, she registered the roar of the crowd, but all Rey could see was her time on the board. She’d broken the 200-meter world record!—just by a few hundredths of a second, not as wide a margin as her 400—but she had it _and_ another gold.

Rey was beaming again, celebratory arm pump sending droplets of water sparkling through the air, then she was leaning over the divider to hug the silver medalist, climbing out of the pool like she was in a dream, waving at the crowd with both arms—and all the while she couldn’t stop smiling, chest heaving from exertion.

Even facing the same reporter who’d compared her to Kylo wasn’t enough to dampen her spirits. Rey grinned at the woman like she was her best friend as she congratulated her.

“It was almost like you were in the pool by yourself there for a second. That last fifty meters—what was going through your head?”

“Honestly, nothing,” Rey laughed. “I knew I was in front, but then I had this second burst of energy that carried me through to the end there.”

“We’re only halfway through competition, but this is on track to be the most successful swim team in Olympic history. How does it feel to be part of the golden age with three of your own golds already?”

“We’re doing something really special here, I could tell even back at the trials. I can’t really describe how I feel—like a dream come true but I could never have imagined anything this incredible.”

“And you’re nowhere close to done!”

“Nope—I’m just getting started.”

“Congratulations again, Rey.”

Rey thanked her and headed for the warm-down pool, finding Finn in the crowd and blowing him a kiss as she went. The announcer started introducing the men’s relay teams as she worked her heartrate back down, and by the time she climbed out, the race was about to start, so she figured she might as well stick around to watch it. Kylo was anchoring, but the other three men were her teammates too and she wanted to support them.

They won—by a narrow margin—and Kylo had his fourth gold of the games. Rey couldn’t help feeling smug that a couple of the splits had been slower than the time she just swam. It was pretty rare for a female swimmer to swim faster than her male counterparts on the same elite level—but Rey could and did swim circles around more than a few of them in training.

Her phone was buzzing with congratulatory notifications as she showered and dressed after her medal ceremony, but when she was zipping up her bag Finn’s ringtone—the Peanuts theme—caught her attention. She glanced at the screen—sitting at the top of her messages, just two words: _google Kylo_.

Huffing out a laugh, she rolled her eyes—but her curiosity got the better of her. There, at the top of the news articles: _Ren breaks famous pre-swim routine to watch teammate win gold_.

“ _What_ ,” Rey exclaimed aloud, looking up and around to make sure no one had heard her. She skimmed through the article—apparently he’d moved to the front row of chairs, eyes glued to the tv in the ready room. Clicking out of the article, she pulled up Twitter—which turned out to be a mistake. It crashed three times from the gargantuan number of notifications she had, but on the fourth try it finally stayed open long enough to do a quick search. There were so many pictures of him—hood still up, headphones still on—but his dark eyes were fixed intently on the screen, and he was even leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees.

Rey gaped at her phone. Kylo Ren didn’t pay attention to other races, not when he had one of his own coming up. She scrolled down through more tweets—people were already turning it into a meme. Her app crashed again just as she caught sight of one that said _when bae kicks ur ass_ —and she was actually grateful for it. She couldn’t deal with this. Shoving her phone in her pocket, she slung her bag over her shoulder, slipped her gold medal back around her neck, and hightailed it out of the aquatic center before she ran into Kylo by accident.

Upon arriving back at the Olympic Village, Rey headed straight for the massive outdoor cafeteria, which was rapidly becoming her favorite thing about the games. All the food one could possibly want, from all over the world, twenty-four hours a day, all for free. _T_ _hat_ was a dream come true, for her especially. Happy and well-fed and in peak physical condition as she was now, there was something of the hungry child she’d once been that lingered in her still.

She decided she deserved french fries to celebrate her new world record, and once she’d reached the front of the long line in front of McDonald’s, she decided she deserved _a lot_ of fries. Shifting her gym bag more securely onto her shoulder, she piled four bags of fries into her arms and started munching on them as she caught the elevator up to her room.

She passed a couple of basketball players as she exited, and that was something she thought she’d never get used to—so many famous, talented people all in the same place, and she could hardly believe she’d earned her right to be among them.

“Nice job, Niima,” one of them said, holding a massive hand out for a fist bump. Mouth full of fries and eyes wide, all she could do was shift her food to one arm and return the fist bump before they’d disappeared into the elevator behind her.

It was nearly midnight, but none of her roommates were back yet, so she flopped onto her bed to savor the peace and quiet, ears still ringing from the roaring crowd, and managed to munch her way through her second bag of fries before her stupid curiosity got the better of her and she whipped out her phone again.

She had to restart it twice and turn off all her notifications before she could get it working properly, then she pulled up the men’s relay post-race interview, telling herself she was an idiot all the while. There was Starck, closest to the reporter, then Brance, Bastian, and Kylo on the far end, bare chest still heaving from his anchor leg of the race, pale skin scattered with droplets of water and freckles. His swim caps were gone, hair slightly damp and falling almost to his broad shoulders in _unfairly_ perfect waves. Rey scowled—at him or at herself, she wasn’t sure. She could admit—at least here, in the temporary privacy of her room, to herself only—that he was attractive. Mortifying as it was to her now, she’d even had a crush on him, when she was thirteen and dumb and impressionable and he was a famous swimmer with Disney prince hair. Of course, he’d been _Ben Solo_ back then, and maybe she had idolized him, a little, once upon a time.

The reporter spoke to his teammates first—shockingly—and when it was Kylo’s turn, true to form, he didn’t smile, a little furrow between his eyebrows as he talked, but there was something...Rey brought her phone closer to her face. The tiniest upturn at the corner of his full lips, and he didn’t look happy, exactly, but he looked _pleased_ and that was both an unusual look on him and one that seemed familiar for some reason that was escaping her at the moment, hovering unidentified in the corner of her mind.

“We’ve got to thank the guys who swam in the heats today, too,” he was saying, and Rey’s mouth fell open so wide a fry fell out onto her pillow. “We wouldn’t have won this race without them.”

Rey had to pause the video, blink a couple of times, and let it soak in that _Kylo Ren_ was shifting the credit away from him and onto someone else. “Maybe miracles do exist,” she mumbled to herself, hitting play again.

After the interview was over, the camera kept following him, because _of course it did_ , and Rey’s mouth dropped open again, because _Leia Organa was in the stands watching and he was headed straight for her_. He’d been estranged from his family for the last five or six years, for reasons no one knew, although the consequences were all too public—a bitter split between him and his uncle, who’d been his lifelong coach, hiring Snoke as his new coach, changing his name, the fact that his famous family had never again been spotted at any of his public meets.

Until now, apparently.

The cameras following Kylo might as well have been invisible for all the attention he paid them as he strode across the pool deck.

“And there’s his mother in the stands,” the commentator was saying, voice oddly hushed, almost reverent. “Leia Organa, a six-time medalist herself in gymnastics. And this is something—we haven’t seen this for a long time.”

Kylo had stopped in front of Leia by this point, engulfing her hand on the railing inside both of his. The cameras were so zoomed in on them you could see every mole on Kylo’s face as he leant down, resting his forehead on their entwined hands. Kylo towered over his tiny mother by nearly a foot and a half, but her seat in the stands gave her a height advantage over him for once, and she bent down to whisper something against his temple where no one could hear it, brushing her other hand over his hair softly, a heartbreakingly vulnerable look on her face. Something seized up in Rey’s chest, guilt squeezing her lungs for intruding on this private moment, even though hundreds of millions of other people had intruded upon it as well.

Even the commentator had fallen silent for a while. “Ren sharing an emotional moment with his mother,” he said at last, unnecessarily, a catch in his voice indicating even he was moved, and Rey was shocked to find tears pricking at her eyes, seized with a nonsensical urge to shove all the cameramen away.

Kylo’s shoulders heaved as he took a deep breath in and out, and Rey held her own breath, afraid he was crying, but when he lifted his head, shaking his hair out of his face, he was clear-eyed, only the tiniest tremble of his lips betraying his feelings. Then he was leaving for the warm-down pool and finally, _finally_ , the cameras left him alone.    

Rey set her phone down on the bed to scrub at her eyes, annoyed with herself for reacting like that in the first place, shoving another handful of fries into her mouth as she tried to talk herself into just going to bed and forgetting about Kylo.

But she’d apparently lost all impulse control, because she was already picking up her phone again and scrolling down through the comments. There was the expected speculation that he’d reconciled with his family—or at least his mother, as many people pointed out that his father and uncle weren’t present. A few heated debates about whether he might change his name back to Ben Solo—something people seemed to have very strong feelings about one way or another for reasons Rey couldn’t fathom. The usual inundation of thirsty comments from people who wanted to fuck him. An amusing rumination about his magical hair— _how many swim caps do you think he uses to protect that shampoo commercial hair??!? i’m betting AT LEAST 4. chlorine’s a bitch. WHY WON’T HE FUCKING TELL US WHAT PRODUCTS HE USES_.

Rey scrolled down quickly, skimming the vast majority of repetitive comments, not quite sure what it was she was looking for—until her name caught her eye, and she reversed her scrolling direction, bringing the phone closer to her face.

_ok i’m not some kind of weird RPFer so don’t come at me but his little smile during the interview looks JUST like his face when he was watching Rey swim. LOOK AT THE PICTURE AGAIN!!! JUST SAYING!!!!_

And the top reply: _lol they’re fucking_.

A kind of unintelligible squeak escaped Rey’s mouth and she scrambled up to a sitting position, trying to identify what the strange churning in her stomach was. She wasn’t used to anonymous strangers on the internet discussing her at all, let alone speculating about who she was...sleeping with. Why would they even _think_ that? Kylo’s relationship status was a source of constant speculation, but what kind of crazy leap of logic did it take to include _her_ in that—based on a couple of facial expressions and antagonistic comments?

So it was definitely her desire to prove to herself how _wrong_ and _delusional_ they were that had her pulling up all the pictures of Kylo from the ready room to study his facial expression more closely, and she was _right_ , it was just his usual brand of brooding intensity—he was probably scowling, in fact, how could they not see that?—and Rey actually zoomed in on his face, a hysterical little giggle escaping her mouth at how ridiculous she was being—and that was definitely...not a scowl.

“Damn it,” she muttered, tamping down the weird flutter in her chest with all her annoyance at being wrong, throwing her phone down on the bed, flopping onto her back to stare at the ceiling and try to focus on the races she had the next day.

Which lasted about thirty seconds before the raucous sound of her roommates returning drifted in from the living room, talking and laughing as they slammed the door behind them.

“Hey you!” Greer Sonnel burst into their shared bedroom, beaming in the general direction of the gold medal still resting on Rey’s stomach. “Nice hardware!”

“Thanks,” Rey grinned back at her. “Where’d you guys go tonight?” They’d hesitated about going out without Rey, but she’d insisted, not wanting to spoil their day off with her own grueling race schedule.

“The Outlander Club.” Greer flipped her long black hair over her shoulder, leaning down to inspect Rey’s medal more closely. “It was great, we’ll have to go back when you can come with us.”

Rey reached up to tug playfully on a lock of her friend’s hair. “You know your hair is ridiculously perfect, right? I’m stealing all your conditioner.”

Greer laughed. “That’s fine, gives me an excuse to steal Kylo’s. Speaking of….” Her gaze slid towards the phone on Rey’s bed, which she realized belatedly was screen-up, still zoomed in on the picture of Kylo. Rey scrambled to grab it, clutching it against her chest, heat rising to her cheeks.

Greer raised an eyebrow, amusement creeping into her voice. “Something you want to tell me?”

“No!” Rey spluttered. “I just—Finn told me to look up _one thing_ and before I knew it I spiraled down the internet vortex. I don’t want to see what they’re saying, but I _do_ , it’s—”

“Weirdly addicting, right? I get it.”

Greer looked so understanding, Rey blew out a relieved breath. “I thought you were going to tell me I’m being a fucking weirdo.” 

Greer grinned, moving back to perch on the edge of her bed across the room. “Well, that too.”

“Hey!” Rey threw a fry at her, but Greer’s reflexes were too quick, catching it midair and popping it in her mouth.

“So I take it you heard what he said about you tonight, then?”

Rey stared at her blankly.

“No? You need to brush up on your stalking skills, Niima.”

Rey’s mouth opened and closed like a stranded fish. “What? Where?”

Greer shrugged. “One of his interviews tonight. We just ran into Brance down in the cafeteria and he made us watch it. Here.” She fished her phone out of her clutch, tapped it a few times, and handed it over.

Rey accepted it warily, a guarded expression on her face, and clicked play. Kylo’s hair was dry, and he was in a back hallway in the aquatic center. A more informal interview, then. He had a kind of calculatedly patient expression on his face that indicated he wanted to be anywhere but there at the moment.

“Kylo, I know you haven’t addressed any of the comments your teammate Rey made about you the other day,” the interviewer was saying.

Kylo had that little furrow between his eyebrows again. “Which comments are those?”

Rey’s mouth twitched. “Well played, Ren,” she said wryly. Greer hushed her.

“Come on, man,” the interviewer pressed. “We know you’re teammates, I’m sure there’s no bad blood there, but we’d all like to hear how you feel about having such a storied career and being—some would say—criticized by a young swimmer with a fraction of your experience.”

Kylo ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t think experience has anything to do with it. Rey’s extremely talented—obviously, she’s an Olympic champion three times over already. She doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for who she does or doesn’t want to be compared to.”

“Kylo, your schedule is incredibly busy right now so you might not be aware just what level this has escalated to, but the world seems to think you two are having some kind of feud. Are you taking this opportunity to clear up that you are not, in fact?”

Kylo raised an eyebrow, and he looked almost...amused. “No, we’re not in a feud. Rey was just stating a fact—I didn’t have two golds after my second day of Olympic competition.”

“But you have four so far here, with plenty of opportunities for more.”

Kylo nodded, expression turning somber again as he brought a hand up to the medal resting against his stomach.

“What kind of pressure are you feeling now, as you inch closer to your grandfather’s total medal record?”  

Kylo was giving some rote answer about taking it one swim at a time, but Rey couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying because she could _feel_ Greer smirking at her from across the room.

“Well?”

Rey paused the video, scowling at Kylo Ren’s frozen face as she muttered, “That sneaky bastard.”

“What?!” Greer sounded half appalled, half on the verge of laughter. “He gave you a compliment, then defended you—twice. When have we ever heard him do that for anybody?”

Rey swung her legs off the bed, sitting up and planting her feet on the floor as she turned to face her friend. “Exactly! He’s trying to make me look bad by acting super nice in front of the cameras! It’s all a ploy!” She waved a hand in the air, like the evidence to support her theory was suspended somewhere over their heads where Greer could look at it.

Greer pulled her chin back, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “A ploy?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, explain to me—”

The shrill sound of Rey’s phone ringing interrupted their conversation, both of them jumping at the unexpected noise. Rey glanced down at the screen and groaned.

“It’s Unkar. I gotta take this.” She swiped to answer the call, taking no trouble to hide how annoyed she was that he was calling so late. “What is it?”

“Why are you awake?” her coach all but growled on the other end of the line.

Rey heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Why are you calling me when I’m supposed to be sleeping?”

Unkar completely ignored the question, barking out, “The Today Show wants you tomorrow.”

“Wait—what?” Annoyance forgotten, Rey sat up straighter, suddenly hanging on his every word.

“The Today Show,” he repeated slowly, like she was an infant. “Ever heard of it?”

Rey decided to ignore the mean edge to his tone. “Yeah, that’s great! I’m just wondering why the sudden—”

“They need you on-site at 6:30 am sharp for makeup. Meet me by the elevator at 6 so we can take a cab over.”

Rey pulled her phone away from her ear to check the time. “But that’s in like...less than six hours.”

“Go to sleep then. And Niima...I need you on your best behavior. No gaffes this time.”

“That wasn’t a gaffe,” she snapped, but he wasn’t listening.

“They’re interviewing you _and_ Kylo Ren together, live.”

“Kylo R—” Rey had barely begun to form the outrage-infused sound of his last name when Unkar interrupted again.

“I don’t want to hear it! This is huge, Rey, and you’re not going to ruin it. Now go to sleep.”

A click, and Rey was left staring at the home screen of her phone, mouth gaping open.

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed the top of her phone to her chin, breathed out softly. “ _Shit_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Poe and Finn and probably Rey are too short to be elite swimmers, but let's just PRETEND. Also, obviously, in this universe people like Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky sadly don't exist.
> 
> This is in no way inspired by real-life swimming drama. IN NO WAY. This is definitely not Olympics RPF. HOW DARE YOU INSINUATE SUCH A THING.
> 
> I can't write without a soundtrack, so this chapter was brought to you by [Golden Age by Lanks](https://soundcloud.com/lanksmusic/lanks-golden-age), [Ava by FAMY](https://soundcloud.com/famyboys/ava), and [American Money by BORNS](https://soundcloud.com/bornsmusic/borns-american-money-preview).
> 
> [My Reylo tumblr is here](http://greyjedireylo.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I'm just kind of throwing this fic out into the void here. I'm OBSESSED with the Olympics and this was begging to be written but I don't know how many people will even be interested in an Olympics AU so comments are EXTRA APPRECIATED :D


	2. The Interview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating change isn't for this chapter, but it is for LATER :)

By some miracle, Rey managed to drag herself out of bed after only five hours of restless sleep. She wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, but she’d never felt such an extreme urge to down several espresso shots in a row. Tragically, water had to suffice, poor substitute though it was. She chugged it intermittently from a gallon-sized bottle as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to wrestle her hair into submission. Finally, in exasperation, she threw it up in what she hoped looked like an artfully messy bun, angling her face to study her dark under-eye circles, hoping the makeup team would be able to hide them. She was grateful her attire was easy, at least, throwing on her Team USA jacket and pants before dashing out the door with thirty seconds to spare before she had to meet Unkar.

Her coach was waiting with breakfast for her—by all outward appearances a thoughtful gesture, but Rey knew him better than that; there was a calculated reason behind anything nice he did. In this case, he knew Rey was always grumpy on an empty stomach, and it was in his best interests to alleviate that as much as possible, considering she was on her way to do something that was going to make her even grumpier.

Unkar briefed her on talking points as she inhaled her breakfast sandwich in the cab on the way to the studio. They were all expectedly bland, questions about her background, the games so far, her goals for the rest of the week.

“What if they call me the female Kylo Ren again?” she asked mid-chew.

“They won’t. I made it clear that topic was off-limits.”

Rey swallowed, eyeing her coach dubiously. “How can it be off-limits? He’s going to be sitting _right next to me_.”

“They’re professionals. This isn’t some tabloid trying to stir up rumors. No matter what they ask, _you_ ,” he pointed a threatening finger at her, “are going to hold your temper. The last thing we need is a PR disaster.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to censor myself just because of _him_.”

“This isn’t about Kylo Ren. This is about all the endorsement deals waiting for you if you play your cards right. Or don’t you need that money?” he said mockingly.

Rey was silent, because he was right and he knew it. Everything she had so far she owed to him, much as she hated it. He was the one who discovered her, continued to pay for her swimming lessons out of his own pocket as she bounced through foster families, so determined she’d become a champion and he’d be able to reap the benefits. She was attending college on a full swimming scholarship, but he probably thought she owed him for that too. Which was why she needed those endorsements—even more than Unkar knew—enough to be able to support herself, pay a new personal coach, _and_ pay Unkar off far more than he was owed so she’d _finally_ be free of him.

Once they arrived at the studio, an assistant greeted them and whisked Rey off to makeup. Unkar wasn’t allowed to come with her, so he reluctantly slouched off to find a place in the audience after growling a string of threats under his breath for Rey to _behave_.

She chanced a peek over the assistant’s shoulder in the doorway and was greeted by the welcome sight of two empty chairs in front of the high counter and brightly lit mirrors. But her quiet sigh of relief was cut off the instant she stepped in the room—Kylo was already there, lounging on a low white couch on the opposite wall, legs sprawled wide and one arm on the back like he owned the whole thing. His phone was in his other hand and he didn’t even lift his eyes from it to spare her a glance.

Rey pressed her lips together. So that was how it was going to be. Shifting her eyes forward, she breezed past her nemesis to shake the makeup artist’s hand, greeting her with a genuine smile. She was tiny and chipper and talkative—far too talkative for the early hour, but Rey was grateful to her for diffusing the palpable tension in the room.

The makeup artist asked Rey if she wanted her to do anything in particular.

“Um,” Rey deliberated for a moment, studying her reflection in the mirror. “Whatever is fine. Just nothing too over the top. And if you could make this disappear that would be great.” She poked a finger at the dark circles under her eyes.

The makeup artist grinned. “No worries, I got you.”

She filled the silence with easygoing chatter as she worked, and all Rey had to do was smile and respond to the occasional question. If her eyes wandered a couple of times to Kylo’s reflection in the mirror, it wasn’t really her _f_ _ault_ —it was just so weird to have him in the room while everyone, himself included, pretended he wasn’t there. Mercifully, if the makeup artist noticed Rey’s wandering gaze, she gave no sign of it.

Kylo’s makeup was already done, unless he’d rolled out of bed photoshoot-ready—which Rey wouldn’t put past him. She suddenly wished she’d done something different with her hair, left it down, maybe tried to curl it. She studied her reflection as the final touches were put on and felt satisfied enough—at least she didn’t look like death warmed over anymore. In fact, she looked the most herself she’d looked since before the Olympics started, before her grueling, stressful race schedule, and the sight was encouraging enough that it had Rey smiling.

“There,” the makeup artist said. “Make sure you flash some of those on-camera. Make the most of those charming dimples.”

“Duly noted,” Rey said, laughing self-consciously as her eyes landed on Kylo again in the mirror. He still hadn’t lifted his eyes from his phone, but he was doing something strange with his mouth, one corner of his full lower lip pulled between his teeth. Rey frowned, struck with the uncomfortable feeling he was holding in a laugh at her expense.

“Okay, you’re all set!” the makeup artist said brightly. “Stay here, I’m gonna go find the sound guy so he can get your microphones set up.”

And just like that, she left Rey with Kylo.

Alone.

Rey blinked at her reflection, a nervous buzzing in her veins as she deliberated over what to do. She probably shouldn’t say anything, she should just sit there in silence like he clearly wanted, she—planted a foot on the floor and spun her chair around the full 180 degrees it took to face him.

“Hi, Kylo,” she said frostily.

For one endless, infuriating second, she thought he was going to ignore her. But then he dragged his gaze from his phone to her face, letting it wander up her body on the way. Rey suppressed a shiver when his always-intense dark eyes fixed on hers, her hands reflexively gripping the arms of her chair, posture defiant.

“Hello, Rey,” he said at last, voice deep and languid.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she snapped.

Kylo raised an eyebrow, and there was that expression of faint amusement again. “ _My_ problem?”

“Were you planning on ignoring me during the interview too, or do you only play nice for the cameras?”

Kylo didn’t move from his relaxed slouch, but his hand twitched on the back of the couch, fingers curling inwards to his palm. “I was under the impression you’d prefer not to speak to me until it was absolutely necessary,” he said stiffly.

Rey gave a sharp shake of her head, face scrunching up in confusion. “Why would I prefer that? Look, I don’t want to be here any more than you do—probably less, in fact—but I’d appreciate it if you could stop acting like an asshole until we get this interview over with.”

Kylo sat up straight then, arm falling to his side as he clenched his hands together in his lap and scowled. “Nice to know being considerate of your feelings makes me an asshole,” he said sourly.

“No,” Rey spat out. “Making _assumptions_ about my feelings makes you an asshole.”

“Assumptions?” Kylo reared his head back haughtily, and despite the anger sparking hot in her chest, Rey couldn’t deny he looked every inch the Olympic royalty he was. That thought just made her angrier. “Assumptions are hardly necessary when you’re publicly sharing your opinion of me to anyone who’ll listen,” he said scornfully.

Rey’s mouth opened and closed, righteous fury stealing her ability to speak for a moment. “That was one time!” she spluttered. “It’s not _my_ fault they tried to make my win about _you_!”

“Nor is it mine,” he said heatedly, then pressed his lips together like he was holding in something else he’d been about to say.

The makeup artist took that opportune moment to burst back into the room with the sound guy, before Rey could come up with a retort.

“Hey!” she said brightly, but her eyes shifted between the two athletes with a hint of anxiety. “Everything okay in here?”

“Everything’s fine,” Kylo said dismissively.

Rey slumped back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. “Just dandy.”

She stayed like that, watching in silence as Kylo stood up so the sound guy could wire him for his microphone. Her eyes traced the path of Kylo’s hand as he unzipped his team jacket, but then he was lifting the t-shirt underneath so the wire could be threaded up the back—and Rey was suddenly confronted by the pale expanse of his abs, very much at eye level and far too close for comfort—so close she could almost have reached out a hand to touch them. Not that she would _ever_ do that. Rey bit her lip, quickly averting her eyes to focus on a painting on the wall instead, suddenly finding the abstract green swirls that composed it worthy of intense study.

The rustle of Kylo putting his jacket back on signaled it was safe for her to look again, and Rey shot to her feet, unzipping her own jacket and dropping it on the chair behind her with a bit more of a flourish than was strictly necessary, seized with some perverse urge to level the playing field. She grabbed the hem of her t-shirt, already hiking it up her stomach when she shot a sidelong glance at Kylo—and a thrill of victory surged through her veins when she caught his gaze on her newly bared skin, no trace of his usual casual arrogance to be found. And maybe it was the novelty of wiping that insufferable look off his face, or the bizarre sort of power she felt from having his eyes suddenly riveted on her—whatever it was, she kept lifting her shirt, nearly to the line of her bra and Kylo’s eyes widened, shooting up to her face, and Rey _grinned_ , raising her eyebrows as if in challenge, and Kylo—

—turned and stalked out the door.  

Rey considered the empty doorway he'd just vacated, bemused, until the microphone setup required her full attention, and she obligingly moved her shirt where necessary, tipped her head to the side as directed, rotated her torso to ensure everything was firmly in place, then donned her jacket again just as the assistant who’d first greeted her reappeared to lead her down the hallway.

It turned out their interview wasn’t until about halfway through the show—something no one had bothered to tell Rey earlier—and so she found herself summarily deposited in yet another room to wait. This one had two couches and several chairs, a coffee table piled with magazines, and an enormous TV on the wall which was playing the show live. Rey ignored it all and made a beeline for the snacks in the corner, grabbing a muffin and deciding she deserved a cup of coffee after all. She turned around after she’d poured it, propping her hip against the counter as she blew on the steaming liquid and glanced over the rim at Kylo, who was gracefully sprawled at the end of one of the couches, gaze fixed on the TV. Rey took in her seating options, considering, then threw herself down on the other end of Kylo’s couch before she could lose her nerve, propping her feet up on the coffee table and grabbing a magazine to flip through.

It was perhaps a dramatic enough gesture to grab his attention, but she didn't want to risk looking up to check, instead taking what she hoped was a nonchalant bite of her muffin, flipping magazine pages noisily, determined that _she_ wasn’t going to be the one to speak first this time.

Several minutes of silence passed between them, broken only by the voices coming from the TV and the silky slide of magazine pages. Rey left it sitting open in her lap so she could give her muffin the full attention it deserved while she devoured the rest of it, then glanced down at the page as she was chewing her last bite—and this was either the most unlucky day or else she was just eternally  _c_ _ursed_ to endure Kylo everywhere she looked, because it was open to a full black-and-white Giorgio Armani spread, featuring the man currently sitting on the opposite end of the couch from her. He was wearing a suit that probably cost more than her tuition for a semester, hands in his pockets, hair artfully tousled, the barest hint of scruff on his jawline, gaze fixed soulfully off into the middle distance. Rey’s mouth twitched, caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

“I hate that cologne,” Kylo said, in what he probably thought was a conversational tone.

Rey turned to look at him. His expression was carefully neutral, like he was attempting to put their earlier argument behind them. Well—if _he_ of all people could do that, Rey could too. She peeled the sample open, lifting it to her nose—which immediately crinkled as the scent hit her. “It’s...pungent,” she offered, diplomatically.

Kylo snorted softly, and she shot a surprised glance at him, having never heard such a noise escape his mouth before.

“Why are you the face of it then?” she asked, careful to keep her tone curious instead of combative.

“Your actual feelings towards a product have little to do with endorsements. You’ll find that out soon enough.”

Rey frowned. She hadn’t actually thought about that before, too focused on the prospective money they offered, which she needed so badly. “That seems….”

“Disingenuous? Such is the nature of advertising,” Kylo said wryly.

Rey turned to look at the spread again, suddenly robbed of some of its glamor. To the casual observer, Kylo’s expression was all model-worthy, graceful nonchalance, but with this new information, it could almost be...boredom. She’d always been told the patina of fame was just that—an illusion—but it was one thing to know that and another thing entirely to _experience_ it.

“I imagine you’ll find that particularly difficult.”

Rey’s eyes darted up to find he’d been watching her study his image on the page. “Why?” she demanded, chin jutting out, defiant. There he was making assumptions about her again.

“Because you’re honest.” That strange, small smile was hovering at the corner of his lips again. “Refreshingly so.”

And somehow—despite herself—Rey was grinning back. “And _you’re_ prevaricating. You mean I’m blunt.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” Kylo shrugged. “Don’t worry, it’ll be media-trained out of you before long.” There was a hint of regret in his tone, and that was...weird.

“Oh, really?” Rey threw the magazine on the table, pulling a leg up onto the couch so she could turn to face him. “Like they media-trained the temper tantrums out of you?”

She’d half-expected that to bring back his scowl, but instead his lips twitched up even more into what could only be called a smirk. “They certainly tried.”

Rey wasn’t quite sure if _they_ was referring to his uncle or to Snoke, and she suddenly found she wasn’t brave enough to dig into that particular wound. Instead, she sighed, picking at the cuff of her jacket. “Unkar lectures me about my public image on a daily basis. You’d think he was a publicist, not a swim coach.”

“That’s because he’s more interested in cultivating a celebrity than an athlete.”

Rey leaned back into the arm of the couch, eyeing him dubiously. “How would you know that?”

“Let’s just say I’m familiar with the type.” Kylo was solemn again, and he turned his gaze away to the TV screen, giving Rey a chance to study his profile—the aquiline nose, the full lips, the tiniest glimpse of one of the ears he’d never quite grown into through the dark tangle of his hair. There was always something so _mournful_ about him Rey couldn’t quite understand, like he took no joy in anything he did.

It was a sad way to live, and Rey felt a sudden, bizarre swell of pity forming in her chest, ridiculous as it was for her—abandoned child, poor college student, just now clawing her way to success—to feel such a thing for a child of privilege like Ben Solo.

“I hear you’re looking for a new coach,” he remarked at length, though his gaze didn’t waver from the TV screen.

Rey scowled. “Where did you hear that?”

His mouth twitched, and he angled his head towards her. “The grapevine.”

Rey raised an eyebrow, not willing to give an inch until he ceded some ground.

Kylo sighed softly. “The Village is a cesspit of gossip.”

“I thought it was a cesspit of orgies,” Rey shot back, then flushed, belatedly shocked by her own words. Did she just _banter_ withKylo Ren?

He huffed out an amused breath. “That too.” Rey could feel his eyes on her, and suddenly she was having difficulty meeting them directly. She took a large sip of her coffee instead.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Kylo said mildly.

“That’s because you didn’t ask a question.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw, and there it was—a hint of that infamous temper. Bizarrely, it set Rey more at ease. The conversational, almost empathetic version of Kylo she’d been talking to just before unsettled her far more than regular, dickish Kylo.

“Fine then, how do you plan on going about finding a new coach?”

Rey drummed her fingers on her cup, trying to decide whether she wanted to be forthright or not. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought that far ahead. I need to be able to pay off Unkar first.”

“You could just keep him. He’s gotten you this far; he must be doing something right.”

“No,” Rey said, sharply enough that Kylo looked at her more intently, brows furrowing.

“That bad?” he asked, voice gone soft, something achingly like compassion in it.

Rey shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I feel like I’m in indentured servitude. He’s always made me feel that way, my whole life.” She waved a hand in the air, trying to lighten the raw weight of that confession, but she had the odd sensation Kylo’s piercing gaze could see right through her.

He was silent for a moment, before clearing his throat, not looking at her, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. Rey watched in confusion; she’d never seen him so awkward, so ill at ease. A rush of regret poured into her chest—she shouldn’t have told him that, what did he care, he was an icon, he was _a dick_ , and she’d never been so frank with anyone about the deep wounds Unkar had inflicted on her, what was she _thinking_ —

“My uncle’s looking to get back into coaching,” he said, interrupting her panicked thoughts, and he was trying to be casual, he was trying to be cool, but she _heard_ the choked way he stumbled over the word _uncle_.

Rey gaped at him. “Your uncle?”

“Yes, maybe you’ve heard of him?” Kylo’s voice was dripping sarcasm.

Rey rolled her eyes. “I meant...isn’t he like a hermit now? Doesn’t he live on some remote island in the Pacific?”

“The Atlantic.”

“Whatever. Wait—are you saying I should ask _him_ to be my coach?” A little breathless laugh of disbelief slipped from Rey’s lips. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It was just an idea.” Kylo’s expression turned sullen. “Forget it.”

Rey could tell he was about to withdraw into himself and send them careening right back into combative territory, which just _couldn’t happen_ , not with their interview getting closer by the minute.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound apologetic, and when he wouldn’t look at her right away she uncurled her leg so she could poke his thigh with the toe of her sneaker. _That_ had the effect she’d wanted—maybe even more than she’d wanted—his head jerked down to stare at her foot like it was an affront to his dignity, and Rey withdrew it quickly, tripping over herself to explain before she could make things worse. “I wasn’t laughing at your idea. I mean, I was but...I was laughing at the idea that _Luke Skywalker_ would want to coach _me_. I mean, he’s...he’s Luke Skywalker, he’s a legend, like….” Rey trailed off helplessly, waving a hand in Kylo’s general direction. He wouldn’t understand how ludicrous that sounded to someone like her, not when the legend was his uncle, the legend was his entire family, the legend was _him_.

His eyes were steady on her now, resentment forgotten. “You really don’t understand how talented you are, do you?” He sounded half-baffled, half in awe, and Rey didn’t know how to handle that—couldn’t meet his eyes—couldn’t look up from swirling the dregs in her coffee cup—couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating up to what was probably an embarrassing shade of red.

Rey mumbled something noncommittal in the general direction of her cup, stalling for precious seconds to compose herself enough to shift the topic away from her. “If he’s coming back, why doesn’t he coach _you_?”

“That’s not possible,” Kylo said shortly.

Rey blinked, startled. “I thought—”

“We’re not on speaking terms.” His tone was crisp, clinical, dismissive.

Rey bit her lip, not sure how to proceed from there. Watching his emotional reunion with his mother the day before, she’d assumed he’d reconciled with the rest of his family too. And she wasn’t about to tread into the dangerous minefield that was Skywalker family drama by further questioning along that line. But Kylo Ren was sitting there right in front of her, no longer an impenetrable fortress, but a man—a man who’d already written his place in history as one of the greatest athletes of all time, but a man all the same. He’d never felt human, or particularly _real_ to her until this very moment, sitting on the other end of the couch from him, close enough to see the sweep of his eyelashes as he looked down, the distracted tug of his fingers on his jacket zipper, the soft black waves of his hair only an arm’s length away—and Rey was filled with a sudden burning _curiosity_.

“Why is Snoke still your coach?” she blurted out before she could think better of the question.

Kylo’s head angled towards her and he just _stared_ at her.

Rey stared back, unblinking. “He’s far worse than Unkar, from what I’ve heard. And it’s not like he’s made you better—you were just as good in Rio as you were in Tokyo.” There was more too—things she didn’t quite know how to put into words—the rumors that Snoke was largely to blame for Kylo’s estrangement from his family, Kylo’s mysterious lack of a personal life, suspicious gaps in Snoke’s history that left many people sure he had ties to criminal organizations, the unsettling shiver that crawled down Rey’s spine every time she saw his cold, dead-looking grey eyes.

Kylo’s jaw tensed, but he was evading her direct gaze. “It’s complicated,” he said stubbornly.

“More complicated than being penniless and owing your whole career and hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man you hate?” There was a waver in her voice Rey didn’t like, and she tried to cover it after with a tight-lipped smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

That familiar crease appeared between Kylo’s eyebrows, and he just looked at her for a long, silent moment, something unspeakably sad in his eyes, and it wasn’t pity, precisely—it wasn’t detached enough to be pity—and his near hand stretched out in her direction, the smallest, slowest of movements, and Rey’s eyes dropped to it, wary and breathless—was he going to touch her knee? Was he going to take her hand?—and she didn’t know—

“Okay, you two are on in ten!” the assistant announced, popping her head in the door.

Kylo jerked his hand back like he’d been scalded, and Rey leapt to her feet, awkwardly tugging at the bottom of her jacket. “Great!” She gave a bright, over-exaggerated smile and took off after the assistant before Kylo could even stand, determined _not_ to walk next to him.

During the summer Olympics, the Today Show was always filmed live on-location, outside where the audience could cluster in the background, waving signs and cheering. Rey followed the assistant out of the building, squinting at the sudden transition to brilliant sunlight, and onto a large patio ringed by perfectly manicured palm trees and set up for filming in several different places—couches on one end, raised stools on the other, a long broadcast desk in the middle—so the hosts could easily move between guests during commercial breaks. The assistant ushered Rey and Kylo over to one of the couches, which was only about ten feet from the barrier the audience was standing behind. Kylo took it all in stride as usual, giving the cheering crowd a nod and a wave before sitting, somehow managing to ignore the group of teenage girls who were squealing in his direction at a pitch that was near ultrasonic.

Rey was overwhelmed. She’d been told the camera was going to cut to them before commercial break as a way to preview their coming interview, and she was supposed to be seated already with just minutes to spare, but someone was holding a handmade sign that said _we love you, Rey_ in glittery letters, and she couldn’t help taking a moment to thank them for their support and sign a couple of autographs. She was instantly engulfed with more items than she could possibly sign in sixty seconds, though, and only managed a couple remarks of gratitude and five autographs before a firm hand on her elbow was tugging her away. The sudden increase in volume of the audience’s cheers told her who the hand belonged to without her needing to even turn around and look.

Kylo bent down as he steered her back to the couch, so close a lock of his hair brushed her temple, so he could say quietly in her ear, “There’ll be time for that later. We have to hit our marks.”

Rey took her seat on the near end of the couch to where the show hosts would be sitting on the couch perpendicular to them. Kylo sat next to her, a diplomatic distance away—leaving a big enough gap that another person could theoretically squeeze between them but not so far away that it would look like they hated each other. When the cameras focused on them for their brief pre-commercial shot, Rey sat up straight, a giddy smile on her face, and waggled her fingers in greeting, a jolt of euphoria shooting through her now that it was finally happening—she’d been dreading this, but she was at the _Olympics_ , the eyes of the world were on her, she was representing her country, she'd wanted this her whole life, and it was _fun_.

Still beaming, she glanced over at Kylo as the camera panned to him. He’d relaxed back into the couch with the easy grace of someone accustomed to the spotlight, one arm slung across the back as he lifted his other hand in acknowledgment, lips quirked into what counted as a happy expression for his usually solemn face.

Al Roker and Hoda Kotb came over to introduce themselves during the commercial break, so warm and friendly they set Rey more at ease, leaning down to embrace her and shake Kylo’s hand before taking their own seats. Rey must have still looked a little nervous, though, perched on the edge of the couch, hands clutched in her lap, because Hoda reached over to pat her knee, reassuring her it was just a quick segment, a handful of questions and it’d be over in minutes.

Rey took a steadying breath, nodding her head and running over her brief talking points in her head one more time before the cameras were rolling again, stomach churning with that familiar mix of nerves, adrenaline, and excitement that hit her just before a race.

“We’re back live in LA with three-time gold medalist Rey Niima, the breakout star of these games, and of course everyone knows Kylo Ren, twenty-six-time medalist here in his fourth Olympics. Thanks for joining us today.”

“Thank you, Al, I’m glad to be here!” Rey was beaming again, so hard her cheeks hurt, and even she was surprised at how genuinely she meant it.

“Rey, I’m just going to get this out of the way because I think a lot of people don’t know this—the accent.”

“Yes,” Rey laughed, tilting her head. She’d been prepared for this one.

“It’s not something we’re used to hearing from Team USA. I know a lot of people have watched you swim and assumed you were born here, and then they watch an interview and they’re confused. Do you get that a lot?”

“Yes, all the time,” Rey said good-naturedly. “I moved here when I was six, so this has basically always been my home. I know some people lose their accents over the years, but mine’s still going strong.”

“It’s _adorable_ ,” said Hoda.

“So many athletes train and live here, but then they go back to compete for their home countries.” Al was smiling broadly. “Now that you’re an Olympic champion, you think the UK might try to poach you?”

Rey laughed again, darting a coy glance at the camera. “Maybe, they might _try_. I can’t say they’d _succeed_.”

“Well, we’re relieved to hear that!” Hoda said. “Okay, I know you’ve already been asked a thousand times about your medals and your world records, so tell us what else you’ve been enjoying the most here.”

Rey was prepared for this question as well, but she’d been saving her answer to be natural, unrehearsed. She drummed her fingers on her knees. “Hmmm. Everything, just everything. All the talented, inspirational people I’ve been able to meet, to watch compete.” In what she felt was a very magnanimous move, she slid her gaze to Kylo, giving him a small smile, neatly including him in that group. She could play nice for cameras, too. His mouth twitched, and he looked vaguely amused. “Also…” she grinned at the hosts again. “I’ve got to say...the free french fries.”

They laughed heartily at that, then turned their attention to her teammate. “Kylo, we all loved that sweet moment you shared with your mom last night.”

Kylo nodded, a little awkwardly, leaving Rey wondering if he'd been assured beforehand that they wouldn't broach that topic only to be caught off-guard now.

“I honestly got a little teary-eyed. Hoda saw me, she can tell you.”

Hoda nodded, looking at the camera mock-seriously. “It’s true, he did.”

“Was she just here for that one race? Or can we expect to see her again?”

“She’s here for the rest of swimming competition, until Saturday at least. I think she’s been trying to catch some gymnastics too when she gets a chance.” Kylo’s tone was colored with a complex stew of emotions, studied nonchalance masking a guardedness underneath, a hint of protectiveness that Rey could tell wasn’t about his own privacy, but his mother’s. It was unexpected, it was startling, it was...weirdly endearing.

She kept her face carefully blank as she worked through that mental process, a small, polite smile hovering on her lips as she watched him, all too aware of the cameras focused on her.

“Kylo, you’ve got probably three more finals ahead of you,” Hoda was saying. “And you’re only two medals shy of tying your grandfather’s medal record. The greatest Olympian of all time. There’s a very real possibility you might break it at these games. The pressure you’re feeling must be enormous right now.”

Kylo kept his eyes on her face while she spoke, brow furrowed, nodding his head solemnly, clasping his fingers loosely between his spread knees. When he answered his tone was low, thoughtful. “Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think the worst of the pressure comes from myself, to be honest. I’ve had years to learn how to shut out all that outside noise, just focus on one race at a time. But when it comes down to it, you can’t escape from your own head.” His mouth tipped up into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

The hosts nodded sympathetically. “You have your heats today for the individual medley, and if all goes as expected, a _much-anticipated_ rematch with Ransolm Casterfo in the final tomorrow. How are you going to approach that race differently than you did in Tokyo?”

Kylo sat up straighter, mouth tightening almost imperceptibly before he spoke. “You know, I’ve been asked so many times what I think I did wrong in that race. I’ve asked myself the same question, and I don’t really have an answer. It just wasn’t my day.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, a little stiffly.

Rey bit her lip to hold in a smile. He was playing it cool but she could tell he was still door-punchingly mad about it.

“I’m just going to go out there and swim my best, Casterfo always brings his A-game, and hopefully it’ll be an exciting race everyone will enjoy no matter the outcome.”

Oh, he was good. He was _really_ good. A decade-and-a-half-long competitive career, and maybe the temper tantrums _had_ finally been media-trained out of him.

“Well, we’re definitely looking forward to it,” Hoda said. “Watching both of you swim, breaking records, making history, it’s such a pleasure. _Thank you_.”

Rey and Kylo both smiled and nodded their thanks, and Rey thought they were done, but Hoda grinned, a little mischievously.

“Okay, I know you both need to get ready for your races today, but just one more thing before you go. You’ve both gone viral a couple of times already this week…”

Rey shot Kylo a wary, panicked look, and he appeared just as flummoxed. This definitely hadn’t been on their talking points. Rey’s heart was beating a mile a minute, she wasn’t prepared for this, what was she going to _say_ —

“I’m not going to ask you about that, but I have to ask you to take a selfie together for us, because it’s going to _break_ the internet.”

Rey released all the breath she’d been holding in her body, probably far too visibly relieved, but she couldn’t help it. A selfie was nothing compared to the minefield that was unprepped live interview questions. “Yeah, of course!” Rey said, smiling again. She risked a glance at Kylo, who still looked a little out of his depth.

Hoda held out her phone, and Kylo raised his hands in helpless protest. “I’m going to let the teenager take it,” he said, and his voice was deep and laced with a sort of teasing warmth Rey had never heard from him before, and it was so startling she forgot about the cameras, she nearly forgot who he was—and she made a face at him.

“Only for a few more weeks!” she protested, and Kylo was squinting over at her, looking immensely pleased with himself, a lopsided smile easing onto his face, and _there_ —Rey glimpsed a flash of _teeth_ , and her stomach did a strange flip. She looked away quickly, grabbing Hoda’s phone and holding it out in front of them at a flattering angle. Kylo scooted closer to her so they could both fit in the screen, the warm side of his torso pressed firmly against her arm as he drew his own arm out of the way behind her. Rey snapped three pictures—her smile was bright, all teeth and dimples. His was close-lipped again, but wide enough that little lines appeared around his mouth and eyes.

Then the interview was over—the hosts thanked them and briefly previewed their swim schedules for the rest of the week for the audience, then the camera was panning over them one more time. Rey blew it a kiss and gave a cheeky wink, relieved to have the interview out of the way but euphoric that it had gone so well.

Kylo had been right—they had about ten minutes to greet the fans clustered behind the barriers before that section of the patio was needed for filming again, so they split up, each starting on one end. Rey lingered by a little girl who was looking up at her shyly.

“I’m a swimmer too,” she said, giving Rey a charming, gap-toothed smile.

“You are?” Rey was delighted. “What’s your favorite stroke?”

“Freestyle,” the girl all but whispered.

Her mom slipped an arm around her little shoulders. Rey’s heart gave a painful clench at the gesture. “You’re her _hero_ ,” the girl's mom said. “She talks about you all the time, she wants to be just like you.”

Rey leaned down, bracing her hands on her knees so she could be at eye level with the girl, whose face had turned bright red. “I expect to see you competing in the pool with me someday,” Rey told her, grinning. “I bet you’ll beat me. Should we get a picture now so we can remember the first time we met?”

Rey leaned over the barrier to take the picture, then she continued down the line. She and Kylo had almost covered enough ground to meet in the middle, but he was currently occupied with the group of squealing teenagers who had eyes only for him, so Rey hung back, taking extra pictures with the group before them.

There was a hesitant tap on her arm and, turning, she saw it was one of the girls. “Sorry, can I get a picture with you too?”

Rey smiled. “Yeah, of course!”

The girl snapped the selfie, then her eyes darted to Kylo and her friends before she leaned closer to Rey and said quietly, “That was really cool what you said the other day when they compared you to him, about just being yourself.”

Rey’s eyebrows shot up, but she was pleased. “Thank you.”

“Also…” the girl bit her lip, looking hesitant for a second, then lowered her voice even further. “I know you’re probably not, but...I think you guys would make a really cute couple.” The words came out in one breathless rush, followed by a bright, nervous smile, then she was gone, re-immersing herself back in her group of friends, leaving Rey stunned, blinking in confusion, mouth open silently around the half-formed words _cute_ and _couple_.

By the time she’d recovered herself, Kylo was nowhere to be seen and Unkar had reappeared to usher her out of the studio and into a cab that would take them straight to the aquatic center, and all the while Rey was too dazed to even process the strange events of the morning, let alone listen to her coach’s growled instructions for her 100 free heats that afternoon.

* * *

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Rey easily qualified for the 100-meter freestyle final the following day, and she nabbed her fourth medal, a silver, in the 4x200 relay that evening. Greer had also won a silver medal in her 200-meter butterfly, and Poe had claimed his first individual gold of the games in his breaststroke final. Kylo won gold _again_ —of course—in his own 100 free final, now just one medal shy of Anakin’s record, and Rey didn’t doubt the media was fawning all over him once more, but she didn’t have the energy to pay attention to anything other than his new world-record time on the board before she left the aquatic center, exhausted from a long day of swimming several heats and a final and wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket once she was settled in her seat on the bus back to the Village. It’d been off all day so she could concentrate on competition, and she powered it on now, warily. There were fewer notifications than the previous night when she’d won gold, and the night before that when she’d dissed Kylo, but still hundreds more than she had the energy to look through at the moment.

There were a couple of missed phone calls, though, and a voicemail—which was weird enough to catch her attention. Nobody ever called anyone these days. The number was unlisted. Rey frowned down at her phone for a second, baffled, before her curiosity got the better of her and she pushed play, bringing it up to her ear—

—and nearly dropping it in shock when she heard the voice on the other end.

  
_Hi Rey, this is Luke Skywalker. I know you’ve had a busy day so don’t worry about calling back right away, but I caught your relay tonight and that split you swam, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been told you’re in the market for a coach, so if you wouldn’t object to an out-of-practice old man throwing his hat in the ring, give me a call back when you get a chance._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The smile Kylo has in the selfie is basically [this smile](http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2014719/rs_634x889-140819061532-634.Adam-Driver-GQ-JR-81914.jpg) because I'm TRASH.
> 
> The soundtrack for this chapter was [I Don't Even Care About You by MISSIO](https://soundcloud.com/missiomusic/i-dont-even-care-about-you) and [Goldfish by Until the Ribbon Breaks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfeF-P9Xgyk).
> 
> I'm going on vacation for almost two weeks so the next chapter is going to be a little more delayed (PLUS the chapters in this fic are turning out super long for some reason) so bear with me, and please drop a comment if you're enjoying it!


	3. Luke Skywalker

Rey listened to the voicemail three times before her brain could process any of the words except _Luke Skywalker_ , and then a couple more times after that to reassure herself that the voice on the other end did indeed belong to her swimming idol, that it wasn’t some elaborate prank. She’d watched enough of his interviews over the years to recognize the wry, self-effacing humor in his tone, the earnestness beneath it that had defined so much of his early career.

It was him.

 _Luke Skywalker_ had _called_ her, and said—

It was only then she realized she’d been in such a haze of disbelief she still hadn’t caught the actual substance of his words, so she listened again, intently, eyes squeezed shut so she could fully soak them in.

He was offering to coach her, and treating it not like the impossible dream it was to her but like he was just another person in the running for a competition that didn’t even _exist_. She stared, unseeing, at her phone, trying to put her thoughts into some semblance of order, focusing on the weary ache in her muscles to convince herself that she hadn’t fallen asleep in her seat and dreamt the whole thing.

By the time the bus arrived back at the Village, she’d mostly recovered from her initial shock, and the innate, practical side of her brain had taken over. Her stomach was growling furiously, but she bypassed the cafeteria and headed straight up to her room, needing privacy and quiet.

He’d assured her there was no rush, but the abandoned child in her was screaming that when opportunities like this came by, you didn’t allow them even a second to slip through your fingers. At the moment, she still didn’t have a plan, or money, or the ability to get rid of Unkar, but she could at least _talk_ to Luke, and waiting til the morning didn’t seem like a way to properly demonstrate to him how enthusiastic she was about his offer.

Rey drummed her fingers on her phone, checking the time and considering. She had no way of knowing where he was, but if he was at home on his freaking _private island_ , it’d be sometime very early in the morning there. But what if he was somewhere else? Waking up her prospective coach in the middle of the night didn’t seem like the best first impression to make.

Stalling for a moment, she added the number to her contacts, gaping at her own fingers as they typed in his name, brain short-circuiting at the very idea of _Luke Skywalker_ casually existing in her contacts list alongside all her friends and acquaintances. But there it was—and she had no excuse to delay any longer. She had to do _something_. Huffing out a shaky breath, jiggling her knees up and down, Rey pressed his name and brought the phone to her ear before she had time to second-guess herself.

“Hello?” His voice was warm on the other end, no hint of sleep in it, and Rey’s answer stuck in her throat for a second at the sheer enormity of the moment.

“Hi, Luke? It’s Rey. Rey Niima. Just—calling you back.” The words rolled off her tongue so quickly it would be a wonder if he managed to decipher them.

“Rey! I didn’t think I’d be able to get a hold of you so quickly.”

“Yeah, well.” She laughed nervously. “It’s not every day Luke Skywalker phones you.”

“It’s not every day a swimmer who’s just shattered several world records calls _me_. I take it the quick call-back means you’re considering my offer?”

“Of course! More than considering, I’m—” Rey bit her lip, trying to dial back the enthusiasm a little, considering she couldn’t actually promise anything at the moment. “I’d say yes right this second if I could, but there are some things I have to work out first. I just wanted to talk to you right away so you’d know this is like...a dream come true.”

Luke chuckled. “You didn’t even let me give my sales pitch.”

Rey let out a startled laugh. “You don’t need one!”

“I’m flattered, but I just want you to understand...I’m rusty. I haven’t coached anyone since Ben.” There was a pause. “Kylo,” he added, the name sounding awkward in his mouth, as though he’d never said it before. “And that didn’t end well.”

“I’m not...him,” Rey hastened to say, nothing but sincerity in her voice, although the sheer absurdity of that statement wasn’t lost on her.

“I know that. I just want you to be aware of what you’d be getting into. I’ve got...coaching baggage. But I love the sport and watching you swim has made me passionate about it in a way I thought I’d never feel again. I don’t know you yet, Rey, but you’ve got this rare combination of raw talent, dedication, and exuberance that just _shows_ , even to a stranger watching you on a screen.”

Rey’s mouth opened and closed. “Thank you,” she said finally, unable to muster a better answer to the unexpected compliment.

“I was thinking of flying in for the rest of competition so I could watch you in person. Would that be okay with you?”

“Would that be _okay_? With _me_?” Rey repeated blankly. “Are you joking?”

Luke chuckled again. “Nice to know we’re mutually starstruck. Makes my unsolicited offer a little less awkward.”

“It’s not awkward at all,” Rey said firmly.

“Good. I just want you to think about this for a second though. The press is going to notice I’m there. They’ll probably assume it’s for my nephew, but if you need to keep this discussion a secret from the world for the moment, it’s a little risky. Rumors might get out, and there could be repercussions with your current coach.”

Rey considered that for a moment. “It’s risky for you too. It’s probably going to set the media talking about your family again.”

Luke sighed softly. “I’m afraid that happens anyway, no matter what any of us do.”

“Fair point. Okay...I’m game if you are.”

“Deal.” Luke sounded pleased. “I’ll be there in time to catch your 100 free tonight. Er, tomorrow night, for you.”

“Awesome!” Rey clutched her phone tighter in her fingers. Her palm was sweating. “Um, also, this is a bit awkward, but I feel like I need to say it now. When I said I need to work some things out first, it’s more than just letting my coach go. I have to wait and see if I get any endorsements once the games are over, I’ve got a lot of expenses and—”

“Rey,” Luke interrupted gently. “I don’t want your money.”

“But…” Rey tugged her free hand through a tangled section of her hair. “What?”

“I don’t want you to pay me.”

“You’re not—you’re not offering to coach me for _free_.”

“No, I’m not offering. Those are my terms.”

Rey blinked several times. “I can’t—that’s not—”

“Rey.” His voice was soft, but stubborn. “I’m talking to you from my _private island_ right now, and when I hang up, I’m going to get on my _private plane_ to fly to LA. The last thing I need is more money. I need something to _do_.”

There was no arrogance in his voice, it was all world-weary matter-of-factness, and by the time he got to the end, it almost sounded like a plea, like Rey would be the one doing _him_ a favor.

And maybe she hadn’t been entirely honest before, maybe some small part of her _was_ like Luke’s nephew, because a swell of injured pride flared up in her chest. She didn’t want to feel like a charity case—she’d spent her whole life feeling like that. She could do it on her own—she _could_ —she could make her own endorsement deals, pay off Unkar, pay Luke. She didn’t want anyone’s pity.

But then a small, guilty part of her pushed back against the pride. _Accepting kindness isn’t a weakness_ , it whispered, sounding a lot like something Finn had told her in those early days when he first came bursting into her life like the sun breaking out from behind clouds on an overcast day. She’d spent so long with her walls up, always on the defensive, afraid to trust, afraid to accept anything in case it had strings attached. And she was learning, she was trying so hard to learn that, but it was a slow process, and this—this might be a good step along the way. A life-altering step she’d be an idiot not to take.

“What do you say?” Luke prompted.

“I say,” Rey drew the word out, chewed on her lip for a second, then grinned. “I can accept that for now. We can discuss it more later.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that.” Luke sounded amused, not annoyed, and Rey was about to ask what gave him that feeling when he’d never even met her, but Luke was speaking again. “Well, you should get some sleep, and I’ve got a plane to catch.”

Rey thanked him and wished him a safe trip, then was left gawping at the icons on her phone, still attempting to process what had just happened in the last ten minutes. In a week full of incredible accomplishments and overnight fame and surreal experiences, that short conversation was perhaps the most difficult to believe of them all.

A rumbling growl interrupted Rey from her stunned reverie, and she pressed a hand to her stomach. If nothing else, she could always rely on her body to bring her back to earth.

Finn. She wanted to tell Finn. She flicked her messages open, typing a quick text.

_hey where are you?_

Her phone buzzed mere seconds later, twice in a row.

_cafeteria_

_better get your butt down here peanut or i’m gonna eat all the fries_

Rey grinned and shook her head.

_be there in a sec_

Normally it would be next to impossible to locate one person in the massive outdoor cafeteria, overflowing as it was with thousands of athletes from over two hundred countries. But her best friend was endearingly predictable, and she found him in his usual spot, sitting across from Greer and rifling through the food piled high on her tray, clearly on a quest for something in particular. His face lit up as he seized a fish taco, but he’d only managed to withdraw it a scant few inches before Greer rapped sharply on his hand.

“Hey,” she groused, but there was no heat behind it. “Get your own food!”

“Flounders keepers.” He grinned around a mouthful of taco, delighted with his own terrible pun. “Hey, peanut,” he greeted Rey as she slid into the empty seat next to him.

“Hey, where’s Poe?” She grabbed a handful of fries from Finn’s tray and shoved them in her mouth.

Greer laughed and shook her head. “What is it with you two and stealing other people’s food?”

“Habit,” Finn said, and while there was humor in his voice there was a quick flash of somberness in his eyes. You could take the kid out of the foster system, but you couldn’t take the foster system out of the kid, the deep thread of shared pain upon which Rey and Finn’s relationship was based. His smile reappeared a second later, though—Finn had always been better at letting things go than she was. “Poe’s still doing interviews. Gold medalists are in demand. Not that you two silver medalists would know that.” He gave an exaggerated wink, and Greer chucked a crumpled-up napkin at him.

Rey distractedly listened to their sniping for a few minutes, still running through her conversation with Luke over and over in her head, unaware it was affecting her outwardly, body practically vibrating with the secret she was holding in, until Finn placed a warm, steadying hand on her jiggling knee.

“What’s up, Rey?” He raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips, but there was concern in his eyes.

“Something good. Something great.” Rey grinned, partly to put his worries to rest, partly because she couldn’t help it. If she was thinking rationally, she’d keep the news to herself at this point. The more people who knew, the greater likelihood it might leak out to people who shouldn’t know it, especially since nothing was settled for sure at the moment. But fuck rationality—she couldn’t keep news like this a secret from Finn.

Rey shot a quick glance around—no one was paying any attention to them—and leaned over the table towards her friends. “I just got off the phone with Luke Skywalker,” she said, eyes wide and disbelieving as she spoke the words aloud for the first time. “He wants to be my coach.”

Her friends gaped at her for a second, blinking as the news soaked in. Greer recovered first, breaking into one of her dazzling smiles. “That’s awesome!”

Finn whooped and looped an arm around Rey’s shoulders, squeezing her in close against his side. “That’s my girl!”

Rey grinned into his shirt as he mussed her hair, peering around his arm at Greer as she asked, “You said yes, right?”

Finn let her go so she could give them a quick recap, concluding with Luke’s plan to fly in for the last few days of competition, only leaving out the part where he insisted she not pay him, because Rey’s pride had _limits_.

Finn sat back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck and looking gobsmacked. “Wow, I think the most flattering part is that he’s willing to risk all the media exposure just to see you in person. Also, you know, to stop being a hermit for you.”

Rey laughed and shook her head. “Right? I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

“That’s not luck, that’s _skill_ , baby,” Finn said, nudging her playfully on the arm.

“Stop,” she protested, embarrassed even as she beamed at the compliment.

“Hey, how do you think he got your number?”

Rey’s mouth opened, then she snapped it shut, forehead furrowing into a thoughtful frown. The last half hour had been such a whirlwind she hadn’t stopped to think about it. “I...I don’t know. He didn’t just have my number, somehow he knew I was looking for a new coach. I’ve hardly told anybody that, just—”

Rey turned to Greer, who was by all appearances taking an innocent sip of water, but when she set the cup down a strange little smile hovered at the corner of her mouth.

“Greer?” Rey said suspiciously.

“What?” Greer was all wide-eyed innocence. “I don’t know Luke Skywalker.”

But Rey’s mind was racing, slotting all the puzzle pieces into place to get a full picture. “No, but you know Han Solo and Leia Organa. And _Kylo Ren_.” Rey planted her palms on the table, leaning forward, eyes intent on Greer’s face as she searched for any flicker of _anything_.

Greer could be difficult to read even at the best of times, but to Rey’s surprise, she gave up the charade easily, little smirk slowly broadening into a grin. “I told him you’d figure it out in about two seconds flat.”

Rey’s mouth dropped open. “Huh?”

Greer shrugged, flipping her voluminous hair back over her shoulder. “He asked me for your number.”

“What? When? Why didn’t he just ask me himself?”

Greer lifted her cup to her mouth again. “Why does he do any of the things he does?”

"Greer!” Rey protested, suddenly desperate for information now that it was at her fingertips.

Her friend sighed and set her cup down. “He didn’t want you to know, but I might as well tell you now since you figured it out yourself. Like I _told him_ you would.” She sounded exasperated. “I had no idea Luke was going to offer to be your coach though. He just told me he wanted to put you two in touch. I thought maybe some informal mentorship kind of thing. I don’t know, I didn’t want to pry too much. I learned not to poke around in that family drama a long time ago.”

Rey allowed herself a moment to process this information, propping her chin in her hand, tapping her fingers against her cheek.

Finn filled the silence with his incredulity. “That’s—woooooow.” He stretched the word out to its limit. “Is this like...a parallel universe? I don’t know what’s happening right now.”  

“Kylo told me he’s not on speaking terms with Luke,” Rey cut in sharply. “Did he _lie_ to me?” She didn’t know why the idea bothered her so much, why in this whole bizarre situation _that_ was the thing she chose to fixate on. But it stung, for some reason. She’d allowed herself some brief vulnerability with Kylo, and she’d thought he’d done the same for her.    

“No, I think that’s true. I imagine it went like some ridiculous middle school telephone game. I gave your number to him, he gave it to Leia, Leia gave it to Luke.” Greer propped an elbow on the table, casually inspecting her fingernails. “Wouldn’t be surprising if Han and Lando were somewhere in the chain too. You can always rely on Ben to do anything as overdramatically as humanly possible.”

Rey sat in baffled silence for a moment as her friends resumed eating, clearly far less bothered by these revelations than she was. Kylo _had_ offered his uncle as a coaching option during their conversation that morning, and he’d seemed sincere enough at the time, judging by how he’d scowled when Rey laughed at the idea. And that was why she’d treated it so flippantly—because she’d assumed _he_ was being flippant. Never in a thousand years would she have believed Kylo would actually want his estranged former coach to coach her, let alone remember their conversation and make time in his busy schedule to turn that idea into reality scarcely half a day later. And more than that—doing so must have been supremely uncomfortable for him, given the fractured state of his family relationships. And all of this for—for what?

“But why?” The words burst out of her. “Why would he do that?”

Greer gave her a strange look, but Rey was distracted from trying to decipher it when Finn choked on his food half a second later, and she was occupied for some time patting him on the back as he recovered. Greer silently handed over her cup of water and Finn accepted it, tipping his head back and draining it. Clutching one hand to his chest, he exchanged a glance with Greer across the table, almost like some silent thought passed between them.

“I don’t suppose you’ve watched your interview from this morning.” Her tone was all calculated disinterest.

Rey narrowed her eyes. “No.”

“Watch it.” Finn’s voice was hoarse from his choking fit. He pounded a fist on his chest.

Rey frowned, eyes darting between her friends, sensing a trap, but she pulled her phone out and searched for the video.

It was still strange watching herself on a screen like this—she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. By all appearances she’d acquitted herself well enough, hadn’t done or said anything to be embarrassed about, and though it was impossible to distance herself enough to give an objective opinion, she seemed charming enough, if a little more on the giddy side than she would like.

Having gotten the obligatory self-examination out of the way, she could shift her focus to Kylo, bringing the phone closer to her face and studying it intently, like the secret behind his actions could be read there. But no great revelation was forthcoming—he kept his eyes on her while she was speaking, a faint smile hovering on his full lips—but that was just common politeness. She’d done the same when he was answering questions. The only small shift she noticed was that there seemed to be something softer about his face when he was listening to her speak—his jaw firming, his eyes becoming more guarded when it was his turn. But that was only natural, considering the personal line of questioning the hosts had taken.

Rey looked up. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

Her friends exchanged a glance again.

“Stop _doing_ that,” Rey protested.

“Peanut,” Finn sighed, like he was breaking some difficult news to her. “He likes you.”

“ _What_ ?” The word escaped Rey’s mouth as an embarrassing squeak. “That’s—that’s _ridiculous_.” Finn hadn’t clarified his words; maybe he didn’t mean in _that_ way, but Rey felt her traitorous cheeks growing heated anyway, the bright lights scattered around the edge of the night-darkened cafeteria doing nothing to hide her reaction from her friends. She swiveled a beseeching gaze towards Greer, that unflappable fount of common sense—to no avail. She just shrugged, unabashed.

“I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that. And I’ve known him a long time.”

Rey propped an elbow on the table, pointing an accusing finger at Greer. “See, that just shows how preposterous your argument is. Kylo Ren doesn’t look at _anyone_. When was the last time he went out on a date publicly, like ten years ago?” Rey sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest triumphantly.

Greer looked bemused. “You realize that doesn’t actually prove your point, right?”

Rey decided to ignore that, jutting her chin out stubbornly instead.

Greer bit her lip to hold in a smile. “You should probably just admit the ruse is up.” She nodded towards Rey’s phone where it was sitting on the table, even though the screen had gone black by now. “You two weren’t acting like people who hate each other. You were flat-out teasing each other by the end.”

“That’s—” Rey spluttered, and didn’t finish the thought because she couldn’t quite decide what it was. “You two are _delusional_.”

“So’s the internet, then,” Finn pointed out.

“What else is new,” Rey muttered darkly, leaning forward to swipe a slice of pizza out of Finn’s hand.

“Everyone’s convinced you’re secretly dating.” His tone was almost gleeful. Rey scowled, albeit halfheartedly. At least someone was getting enjoyment out of all this nonsense. “They already gave you one of those dumb mashed-up couple names.”

Rey stopped chewing, slid her gaze to him, and gave one slow, disbelieving blink. “ _What_.”

Finn’s grin was dazzling. “Yeah, it’s—”

“No!” Rey cut him off sharply, too loudly. The athletes sitting at the table next to them turned curious gazes in their direction. Rey flapped her half-eaten slice of pizza in the air helplessly. “I don’t want to know! This is so weird! Why is this happening?”

Greer let out a breathy laugh and shook her head, but Finn finally relented and took pity on her. “It’ll pass in a few days when they find something else to talk about.” He patted her shoulder reassuringly.

“It better,” Rey growled, shoving the rest of her pizza in her mouth, not caring that it made her cheeks puff out like a squirrel, just further evidence of her abysmal table manners. Shoving her chair back, she rose to her feet and planted her hands dramatically on the table. “I’m going to bed,” she announced. “You two _traitors_ can stay here and laugh at my expense.” Whisking a bag of fries off Finn’s tray, she marched off towards the dorms.

“Rey,” he protested behind her, half-cajoling, half-laughing.

She flipped him the bird over her shoulder, confident he knew her well enough to interpret the gesture as her being in a bit of a huff, not genuinely angry at him, and the warm, familiar sound of his laughter carried well on her way to the elevator.

* * *

Rey did go to bed—technically. She lay sprawled on her stomach under the standard-issue comforter in air-conditioned darkness, trying to will her mind to stop racing so she could get some rest. But it wouldn’t obey—there was too much to think about. Important things to think about, like her freestyle final the next day, and the fact that _Luke Skywalker himself_ would be there in person just to watch her swim, and how exactly she should go about firing Unkar. And far less important things—why Kylo had put her in touch with his uncle, what the world was saying about the two of them, how exactly she felt about both of those things—which irrationally kept floating to the forefront of her mind.

With a frustrated growl, she flipped over onto her back, legs tangling in the sheets, hand grasping blindly for her phone on the bedside table, unsure what she was going to do with it but needing to do something. By the time her mind caught up to her fingers, she was looking at the selfie she and Kylo had taken for Hoda that morning. The number of likes and retweets was staggering—Rey squeezed her eyes shut then opened them wide against the brightness of her phone screen in the darkness, sure she’d seen it wrong—but the numbers were still there, just the same.

That wasn’t what she’d wanted to look at. Her eyes settled on Kylo—sunlight highlighting the perfect waves of his hair in rich shades of brown and black, smile dimpling the interesting angles of his face, surprising warmth in his usually intense dark eyes. It was beyond strange to see this man whose picture decorated the Wheaties boxes at the grocery store and more magazine covers than she could count sitting next to her, squeezed in close so they could both fit in the camera frame. Unbidden, Finn’s words echoed in her mind— _he likes you_ —and an errant spike of heat shot to her gut and went sparking along her veins.

Alarmed, Rey switched her screen off and dropped her phone back on the table like it had physically burned her. That was—not the reaction she should be having to Kylo Ren feeling anything for her that wasn’t disdain or indifference.

 _If_ Finn was right—which he _wasn’t_ —what was she supposed to do with that information? She hardly knew Kylo—had disliked the person she thought he was and was only newly coming to the realization that he might be a different person now than he used to be. She couldn’t even wrap her head around the one thing she knew for sure about him—that he’d done her a huge, life-altering favor.

And _that_ had to be what had set off this nervous flutter in her veins, because for the life of her she couldn’t figure out _why_ he’d done it—and she knew from years of personal experience that when people did something like this they expected something in return. What could Kylo Ren possibly want from her? He had everything, and she had...next to nothing.

Rey huffed out a breath, gathering the comforter closer under her chin and squeezing her eyes shut. This distracting line of thought was not going to help her perform well the next day. She shoved Kylo out of her mind and replaced him with a visualization of her 100-free final, stroke by stroke, the familiar repetition of it lulling her into a comfortable sleep at last.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I'd like to apologize for taking so long between updates this time. I've had a super busy couple of months, and when I finally found time to write the chapter just kept getting longer and longer with no end in sight. So I decided to split it into two chapters, which works better for me but unfortunately means there's no interaction between Kylo and Rey in this chapter. Sorry :( That will be remedied next chapter!
> 
> For those of you who aren't familiar with Bloodline and want to know what the characters look like, the author "cast" Priyanka Chopra as Greer and Tom Hiddleston as Ransolm (I've aged Ransolm down a few years so he's closer to Ben's age so it doesn't stretch credulity that he'd still be swimming competitively).
> 
> [buiana](http://buiana.tumblr.com/) made [this awesome manip](http://greyjedireylo.tumblr.com/post/153358894123/buiana-kylo-and-his-grandfather-as-olympic) of Kylo and Anakin with their medals. Thank you <333
> 
> Music for this chapter is [Hands Down by The Holy Coast](https://soundcloud.com/common-wall-media/the-holy-coast-hands-down) and [An Act of Kindness by Bastille](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J44JS-PmfbI).
> 
> Okay LAST NOTE I PROMISE but if you're enjoying this fic I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you check out the tv show Pitch. It's obviously about baseball, not swimming, but there are some similarities between Rey and Kylo in this fic and the 2 main characters on the show (he's quite a bit older and is a veteran of the sport, she's a rookie with the attention of the world on her, she refuses to admit she had a crush on him when she was younger, etc. lol). Plus the whole fame, social media angle, even down to Ginny telling her little girl fans to hurry up so they can play with her which is EERILY SIMILAR to something I had Rey say last chapter. I started writing this well before the show started airing and as I've been watching it I keep yelling "ARE YOU KIDDING ME???" because it's literally a sports AU fanfic brought to life. It's BEAUTIFUL, GO WATCH IT, thank you for reading, and I promise next update will be much faster <333


	4. The Rivalry

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

A poke to her arm sent Rey rolling onto her back, blinking groggily up at the ceiling, wondering why it was so far away and so bright, why her bed was so hard, why there was a buzz of activity and chatter all around her—until she realized she’d fallen asleep on a pile of towels in the athlete common area of the aquatic center.

Finn was squatting next to her, a stack of cardboard takeout boxes in his hands. “Carbo-load time!” he said cheerily.

Rey’s eyes snapped open fully. “That’s what I like to hear.” She grinned, drawing her arms overhead and stretching, catlike. “How long was I out?”

“Hmmm, an hour maybe?” Finn stuck his free hand in his jacket pocket, fishing something out and dropping it on a towel next to Rey. “I swiped your phone so Plutt wouldn’t see it. Good thing too, looks like Skywalker texted you.”

Rey grabbed for her phone, scrambling ungracefully into a sitting position as she opened her messages.

_Landed in LA. I’d wish you good luck but I know you don’t need it. Have fun!_

Rey texted back a quick answer, unable to keep the stupidly big grin off her face.

Finn was standing now, still watching her. “That’s what I like to see. I’m so happy for you, peanut.”

Rey sobered immediately, shooting a furtive look towards the other side of the expansive room, where Unkar was engaged in conversation with some other coaches. “I wish that part was over with already,” she muttered.

Finn held out his free hand to help her to her feet. “Maybe you should just rip off the band-aid. You’re obviously going to get endorsements. You already have four medals and are pretty much a shoo-in for two more.”

Rey accepted her container of spaghetti, following Finn to a line of folding chairs against the wall. “I just can’t deal with all the drama it’s going to stir up until after competition is over.”

Finn raised an eyebrow, but chose to stuff a generous forkful of spaghetti into his mouth instead of arguing. Rey gave him a grateful smile and dug into her own pile of noodles.

“May I join you?”

Rey’s head jerked up at the unmistakable cadence of Ransolm Casterfo’s voice, too startled to reply, mouth full of spaghetti as she stared up at yet another Olympic legend. His blue eyes were piercing and the sharp lines of his cheekbones were aristocratic, but the general intimidating effect of his handsomeness was softened by his charming smile and the crinkles it made around his eyes.

Fortunately, Finn was unfazed. “Casterfo!” he said with delighted surprise, reaching out to clasp the other man’s hand in the sort of bro-handshake he reserved for friends. “Good to see you again, man. This is Rey.”

Ransolm took the empty seat next to her, giving her a chance to swallow her food and recover her composure. “I believe she needs no introduction,” he said, holding out his hand again. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Rey managed to squeak out.

“Ready for your rematch with Ren tonight?” The curiosity in Finn’s tone was laced with a familiar, mischievous warmth.

Ransolm chuckled and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “You know, there are going to be six other people in the pool.”

Rey shot a sidelong, admiring glance at him. That wasn’t the sort of thing one typically heard coming from the mouth of such a decorated Olympian.

Finn snorted. “Yeah, technically. But you _know_ you’re each other’s only real competition. And Ren’s got something to prove after Tokyo.”

“He’s beaten me since, more than once.”

“At the world championships. This isn’t remotely the same thing.”

Ransolm just gave an enigmatic smile and smoothly changed the subject. “In any case, I thought I’d seize the opportunity to get a few pointers from the backstroke king.”

Rey grinned around her fork, bursting with pride on her friend’s behalf as Finn’s expression turned both flustered and pleased at once, his classic reaction when anyone paid him a compliment. She sat back in her chair and listened to the two men talking animatedly, drawing her feet up onto the seat and propping her takeout box on her knees so the spaghetti would have the shortest trip possible into her mouth. Pausing to chew, she lifted her gaze from her food just in time to see Kylo Ren as he walked past on his way to the massage tables. He didn’t even spare them a glance, leaving Rey’s eyes free to wander down his barely clothed body, from the dark ends of his hair brushing the towel slung around his neck to the black speedo sitting precariously low on his hips. Rey was accustomed to spending hours every day around nearly naked men, thought she’d grown immune to the sight—and this certainly wasn’t the first time she’d seen Kylo Ren in a speedo—so she couldn’t fathom _why_ her cheeks grew instantly hot and she had to tear her eyes away to dip her chin down, feigning intense interest in her meal, hoping her hair would cover the sudden redness of her face.

Finn and Ransolm were blessedly oblivious, too absorbed in a discussion of the finer points of breathing rhythms. Rey kept shoveling forkfuls of spaghetti into her mouth, focusing on their words so she couldn’t focus on the disturbing implications of her body’s traitorous reaction to Kylo’s mere presence and general...nakedness.

“What do you think, Rey?”

Caught off guard, all she could manage was a mumbled “Mmmpf?” around her fork.

Ransolm gave another of his easy smiles. “Your freestyle technique is to die for.”

Rey gulped her food down and let out a nervous laugh. “I doubt I have any pointers you haven’t heard before.”

“No need for false humility,” he chuckled, leaning back as his eyes flickered over her face.

“I’m not—” she protested, before she realized he was teasing her. But his expression was open and expectant—he really wanted to hear what she had to say.

She didn’t need to be asked twice. “You could stand to extend your stroke a little. Sometimes your elbows bend at the end. Just a tiny bit—it’s barely noticeable.”

“You’ve been watching my racing footage.” The corner of his mouth turned up, but he looked pleased, not smug—unlike _some_ people.

“Got to learn from the best if you want to be the best,” Rey said, unabashed.

“I think you’re already a far better swimmer than I’ve ever been.”

“Apples to oranges.” Rey smirked. “Freestyle’s not your stroke.”

“Regardless. I wasn’t comparing our specialties; I was speaking generally.”

Rey narrowed her eyes, poking her fork at him. “You do realize the charming accent thing doesn’t work on me, right? I’ve got one too.”

She could _feel_ Finn rolling his eyes next to her. “Just take the compliment, Rey.”

Ransolm raised an eyebrow, lips thinning as he tried to hold back a smile. “From one charming Briton to another...I was being entirely sincere.”

Rey grinned, quick and bright. “Well, thank you. You’re still the competition though.” She looked down at her takeout box, spinning the last of the spaghetti around her fork. “You’re not getting any more trade secrets from me.”

“Cheering for Ren, are you?” Ransolm sounded amused.

Rey scoffed, turning to give him a scathing look, but his attention was trained elsewhere, and he gave a brief nod, as if acknowledging someone. Rey followed his eyeline instinctively, landing upon Kylo at the end of it, walking back the way he’d come. Kylo’s jaw tightened, chin jerking in a terse response to his rival, then his gaze slid to Rey. For a breathless moment, their eyes locked, just long enough for Rey’s heart to give one nervous flutter in her chest—then she had to look away. She felt like a coward, but the sheer enormity of both what he’d done for her and the assumptions the world was making about them had come crashing down with extra, embarrassing weight the second he looked at her. She didn’t know how to face him at the moment.

Belatedly, Rey realized Ransolm was waiting for a verbal answer to his question. “He doesn’t need me to cheer for him,” she sniffed, hoping she sounded properly dismissive of the idea.

“No. No, I suppose he doesn’t _need_ it,” Ransolm replied, putting suspicious emphasis on one word in particular.

Rey opened her mouth and then promptly closed it, deciding for once in her life discretion was the better part of valor.

“Been reading the internet rumors, Casterfo?” Finn smirked— _the traitor_ —and clasped his hands behind his neck, sprawling back in his chair and looking far too amused.

“That’s hardly necessary,” Ransolm said dryly. “Just—”

Rey shot to her feet before he could finish whatever mortifying thing he’d been about to say. “Well!” she said briskly. “I’ve got to get ready for my race!” And she took off for the locker room so quickly she nearly forgot her manners, scrambling back after a few steps to wish Ransolm good luck in his own race before dashing off again.

* * *

Unkar waylaid Rey on her way to the locker room with an iPad and all the racing footage he could get his hands on, installing her in a chair and hovering behind her so he could frequently reach over her shoulder to pause it and pontificate both on Rey’s many apparent flaws and her opponents’ strengths. She’d watched most of it before—multiple times—but she gamely listened to him through footage of the qualifying heats the previous day, focusing her attention on the two or three other swimmers who actually had a chance of beating her. Then they moved on to footage from the 100-free relay Rey’s team had won the previous Saturday, and so on to increasingly tangential footage. He was critiquing her turns in her world-record-smashing 200-free swim from two days before when Rey finally lost her patience.

“Yeah, I’ve got it, thanks,” she snapped, pushing the iPad back into his meaty hands. “If I come off the wall harder in my _one turn_ maybe I can shave about a thousandth of a second off my time.”

Unkar’s chest puffed up and his face reddened, the classic sign that he was about to start shouting at her. Rey shot a glance around the room. It was bad enough to be screamed at during private practice, but in a room full of all the best swimmers and coaches in the world it’d be downright mortifying.

She bit her lip and made a bad attempt at a placating tone. “You know I’m going to win this thing.”

“That’s not the _point_ ,” he hissed, then stopped and glanced around the room too. Apparently he’d learned a little tact now that they were on a bigger stage, with more attention on them. He probably wouldn’t want rumors getting out about what kind of angry working relationship they had.

Not that it mattered anymore, Rey thought, watching him impassively. But _he_ didn’t know that yet, and she found she’d rather not make a scene, so she allowed him to tug her by the elbow out the door and into an empty back hallway before yanking her arm out of his grasp, backing away to lean against the white cinderblock wall, crossing her arms over her chest and bracing for the storm.

It descended swiftly. “You have to do better than _win_ , girl,” he growled, pointing a threatening finger at her. “This is your last individual race, and thanks to fucking _Kylo Ren_ , everything you do is in his shadow right now. Every medal you get, every record you break, the world is hardly going to notice because they’re too busy watching the _Skywalker legacy_.”

Rey’s body was nearly vibrating with anger, for once not directed at Unkar but at the things he was saying—delivered with unnecessary harshness as they were, they rang with a truth she already knew in her bones, but it was somehow worse to hear it spoken aloud, how she had to work ten times harder to secure the attention Kylo got by _breathing_.

All the same, Rey stuck her chin out, defiant. “I have my whole career ahead of me. Kylo Ren is reaching the end of his.”

Unkar’s face turned a worrying shade of purple and he took a step closer to her. “You think that’s the kind of attitude that earned Kylo Ren seven gold medals at the age of seventeen?”

Rey bit back a frustrated retort that she didn’t want to _be_ Kylo Ren—she was starting to realize that while that was still true at its essence, it wasn’t entirely accurate. She wasn’t swimming purely for the love of the sport anymore—if she was, fighting for media attention would not bother her nearly so much as it had begun to. She didn’t want to be Kylo Ren—she didn’t want swimming to be her entire world, she didn’t want to lose her life and her friends and _herself_ to it, but she damn sure wanted to make a lasting impact on the sport. She wanted to be a _legend_ , she realized, the revelation hitting her with startling clarity.

Unkar wasn’t finished. “You’re going to break another world record in this one, or you’re going to settle for being just one more swimming star who had their moment of fame and burned out. I’m not going to let that happen. Do you want to be a lasting contender, girl?” He loomed over her, blocking her path to escape, demanding an answer.

Rey glared at him. “Yes,” she bit out at last.

Unkar smiled, and it was more unsettling than his anger. “Good,” he crooned. “Then don’t question me again.”

He was close enough now that Rey could feel the stench of his breath ghost against her cheek, and she lingered for half a second, entertaining the urge to punch him in his jowly neck before her self-control gained the upper hand and she slipped nimbly past him, back towards the locker room door. “I’m going to warm up,” she tossed over her shoulder, suppressing the horrified shudder that these sorts of encounters with him always left creeping down her spine.

Soon she’d be free of him, she promised herself, _soon_.

* * *

Rey arrived in the ready room early so she could see Finn once more before his 200-meter backstroke final. He was in a corner, bright blue jacket stark against the white walls, bouncing on the balls of his feet and rolling his shoulders, eyes squeezed shut as he theatrically mouthed the words to a song no one else could hear. Rey lingered in the door for a moment, watching him fondly. He was always like this before a race, full to bursting with excess energy, unable to sit still for a minute.

His eyes popped open as if he’d sensed her watching, and Rey went to him.

“What’s up, peanut?” he said, a little too loud, flashing a bright smile as he pulled his oversized wireless headphones down around his neck, but his smile faded into a look of concern when Rey came to a stop in front of him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Rey attempted a smile. “Just wanted to wish you good luck.”

“Rey,” he said sternly, unconvinced.

“It’s really nothing.” She sighed. “Just Unkar being Unkar.”

Wordlessly, he held out his arms, and she stepped into them, burying her nose against the familiar solid warmth of his shoulder. His jacket rustled as his arms wrapped around her, and Rey allowed herself a moment of solace. The two of them were always generous with their affection, an eternal unspoken attempt to make up for all the years they’d been denied it.

“Hey, fuck him, okay?” Finn muttered against her temple. “Whatever he said to you, it’s bullshit.”

Rey swallowed hard and nodded, as much as she could with her cheek squished up against his chest, then pulled away, tucking a few stray pieces of hair back under her swim cap. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “This was supposed to be about _you_.”

Finn was already back to bouncing in place again. “Trying to throw me off my game so Xu can beat me, huh?”

“Shhhh!” Rey hushed him, laughing even as she shot a glance at the Chinese swimmer in question, who was sitting just a few feet away.

Finn shot a pointed look at Xu’s headphones and rolled his eyes. Rey gave his arm a gentle bump with her fist. “You know I’ll be sitting right here, watching that screen and cheering you all the way.”

“You’d better be!” he said with a mock-scowl, reaching down to unzip his jacket as the other swimmers started lining up for their walkout, giving her an affectionate chuck under the chin on his way out. “Hey, peanut,” he said, lingering long enough to ensure she had to squarely meet his eyes. “Remember to have fun.”

This time, her answering smile was real. “You too.”           

* * *

It was a close thing, and Rey was on pins and needles the entire time, drawing so near to the TV for the last 100 meters that a couple of swimmers sitting behind her grumpily accused her of blocking their view. Rey didn’t move.

Finn hovered around third place for most of the race, a few strokes back from the leader, and Rey was nervously chewing on her fingernails by the time he turned for home and began creeping up on his competitors, finally catching up in his last few strokes, out-touching both of them by a few hundredths of a second. Rey let out all the breath she’d been holding with one huge, relieved gust, tension easing out of her limbs as she watched the slow-motion replay of the race.

“Damn you, Finn,” she muttered, all too acquainted with his habit of coming from behind at the very last second and nearly giving her a heart attack every time.

Rey resumed pacing around the room as she waited for her race to start, grateful that the medal ceremony scheduling meant Kylo Ren wouldn’t be appearing in the ready room until she was well clear of it. She needed to speak to him eventually, to thank him, but she hadn’t yet wrapped her head around this overwhelmingly absurd turn of events, let alone settled on what she would possibly say to him.

There’d be time to think of that later. For now, she needed to focus on her race. Not for Unkar, endorsement deals, another gold medal or world record—but for herself.

And maybe—a little bit, because she couldn’t help it—for Luke Skywalker, her childhood hero who’d flown halfway across the world to watch her.

The roar of the crowd was loud enough that Rey could hear it right through her noise-cancelling headphones when she walked out onto the pool deck, and it shot adrenaline through her limbs in a way she was all too aware could become addicting. She glanced around the crowd to give them a quick smile and wave, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the aquatic center—the combined effect of the best swimming team in Olympic history competing on their home turf and the rematch of one of the most storied rivalries in swimming. And her effect too, Rey supposed, spotting a cluster of little girls holding signs with her name on them.

 _No pressure_.

Everything faded into background noise, though—as it should—once she was on the starting block, nothing but her body and her breath and the length of placid water before her. Snap of her swim caps, stretch of her swimsuit, curl of toes and fingers against the rough surface of the block. The starting gun, the dive into the water—easy as breathing. A faster pace than her last individual race—she only had half the distance to put space between herself and her competition, just one length of the pool and back.

Going into the turn, Rey was peripherally aware that she was neck-and-neck with the swimmers in lanes 3 and 5 on either side of her. She kicked harder going in to give her an extra burst of momentum, tucking her head down, exhaling a breath as she flipped onto her back, pushing off the wall with every ounce of strength in her body. Twisting onto her stomach just before surfacing, she headed into the home stretch, awareness narrowed down to nothing but the motion of her arms and the rhythm of her breath and the kick of her legs as she cut her way swiftly through the water. Her fingertips brushed the wall almost before she was aware of it, but this time the race was too close for her to know if she’d won until she’d ripped off her goggles, turning to squint up at the board through water-logged eyelashes.

The sight of her name at the top of the board was all Rey’s brain was able to register as she bobbed in the water for a moment, trying to catch her breath, a delighted smile dimpling her cheeks. Then she reached over the lane dividers on each side to hug the second and third place finishers, hoisted herself out of the pool, and headed for the post-race interview, yanking her caps off and shaking droplets of water out of her hair as she went.

She chanced a glance at the stands before the camera focused on her, not expecting to be able to pick someone out in such a huge crowd, but Leia Organa was in what had become her customary spot front and center, and her twin brother was seated next to her, older and greyer and more bearded than Rey remembered, but unmistakable all the same.

“I’m here with Rey Niima,” the interviewer was saying, and Rey snapped her attention back to the same woman who’d called her _the female Kylo Ren_ what felt like a lifetime ago but which had only been a few days before. “Who was the expected gold medalist in this race tonight, but Rey—you did so much more. How do you feel about that world record with a _sub-51 time_?”

Rey’s brain short-circuited, and she just stared at the interviewer for a moment. “What?”

“You didn’t see your time?” The interviewer sounded delighted.

“No, I—” Rey ran a hand through her tangled hair, scrambling for words.

“Well now that you know, how do you feel about it?”

Rey stared down at the microphone that’d been shoved in her face. “Um...shocked. I’ve never even managed that in practice. I guess it was just, you know, the adrenaline of being here and competing against these world-class athletes. I think we all push each other that much harder to be better.”

“Better is putting it mildly. You have five medals now, three individual golds, and you set a new world record in each of your individual races.”

Rey shot a glance at the camera, wide-eyed, not quite sure what she was supposed to say. “That, um, definitely hasn’t sunk in yet. I don’t know if it ever will. I just came here to do my best, you know. I’m young and there’s a lot of pressure here. I can’t really think about things like records, or I’d just...freeze up in terror probably.” A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips.

The interviewer smiled sympathetically. “Well, you’ve got one more race to look forward to, the medley relay on Saturday. How are you going to prepare for that?”

“The relays are so much more relaxing, because it’s a team effort. I love my team, we’ve got each other’s backs, we’re excited, we’re ready to go.”

“Congratulations again, Rey.”

Rey nodded and headed for the warm-down pool, darting a quick, timid smile in the direction of the stands as she walked past. Luke beamed at her as he and Leia applauded along with the rest of the crowd, and Rey positively _glowed_ —impressing Luke Skywalker was even better than her new world record.

* * *

Finn’s and Rey’s medal ceremonies were in immediate succession that evening. She stood to the side while waiting for hers, pride swelling in her chest as she watched her friend atop the podium, hand on his heart as he beamed at the rising flag and mouthed the words to the national anthem. Then it was her turn, and even though it was her fourth time winning gold now, she didn’t think it would ever fail to move her—tears pricking at her eyes as the music swelled, still grasping to believe that this was all real and not the wild imaginings of a little girl with no family and no money and nothing but dreams to comfort her.

Afterwards, she hugged Finn tightly, both of them careful not to mention the telltale sparkle of tears in the other’s eyes, laughing when their medals clinked together.

“Ready for the race of the century?” he asked mischievously.

Rey groaned. “Can we _not_ watch from the stands, please? I don’t need cameras on me right now.”

“If you _insist_.” Finn gave an exaggerated sigh. “I was hoping for the free publicity.”

Laughing, Rey slugged him in the arm. “Shut up!”

They found a spot to stand with a decent view of the jumbotron and a better view of the pool—“I’m not watching this on a screen,” Finn insisted—just in time to see the swimmers emerge from the ready room. Ransolm was genial and charming as always, acknowledging the cheering crowd with a large smile. Kylo ignored them all, headphones on in a probably fruitless attempt to create a sound barrier, dark gaze trained straight ahead, generous mouth turned down into a scowl of concentration. But it hardly mattered, the thunderous roar of the audience only increasing in volume as he strode out onto the pool deck—his personality wasn’t the reason they loved him, after all.

Rey crossed her arms over her chest, focusing on any of the other swimmers but him as he disrobed, not trusting herself after her embarrassing reaction to him earlier in the day.

“How d’you reckon this is going to play out?” Finn asked from beside her.

“I think it doesn’t really matter,” she said dryly. “He’s going to medal. That’ll tie Anakin’s record, and that’s all anyone’s going to be talking about.”

Finn tilted his head, fingers absently toying with the medal resting against his stomach. “I don’t know about that. Depends on how he reacts if he loses again.”

Rey let her eyes find Kylo, careful to keep them on his face, which he was currently contorting to get his goggles seated properly. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Something about him seems different this year. He’s...calmer.” She noticed Finn watching her with a funny look on his face. “Or something,” she amended, flustered.

Finn raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing.

A sudden reverent hush fell over the aquatic center as the swimmers prepared to take their marks, 18,000 people collectively still, almost afraid to breathe into the silence. There may have been eight men positioned on the starting blocks, but 18,000 pairs of eyes were fixed on only two of them.

Safe in the assurance that there were no cameras on her where she was standing, and with thousands of other people doing the same, Rey felt at liberty to keep her eyes riveted on Kylo. If he was feeling the weight of his grandfather’s legacy at the moment, it was impossible to tell from his relaxed body language as he shook his arms out and bent over, biceps flexing as he grasped the edge of the starting block.

A moment of absolute stillness, then the sound of the starter pistol, and the eight swimmers dove swiftly into the water. The opening stroke was the butterfly, and Kylo and Ransolm were dead even in lanes 4 and 5 for the first length of the pool, the swimmer in lane 2 edging ahead of them. They both executed a swift, perfect roll at the first turn, dolphin kicking while still underwater, surfacing on their backs in breathtaking synchronization. But 25 meters into the backstroke, Ransolm was inching ahead of Kylo, even as the swimmer in lane 2 began fading back.

“Casterfo’s taking my advice,” Rey distantly heard Finn say next to her in a delighted whisper.

Coming into the most challenging transition, from back to breaststroke, Ransolm performed a flawless suicide turn, and Kylo...didn’t.

“Shit, that was bad,” Rey muttered, drawing the last word out. “Why didn’t he just do an open turn?”

“Trying too hard to keep up with Casterfo, probably. Getting in his head too much.”

A less than stellar turn meant Kylo lost additional ground to Ransolm going into the third pool length, but even then he was far enough ahead of the rest of the field to make them all look like amateurs.

The rest of the field wasn’t his concern, though.

Going into the final turn, Kylo was a solid half body length behind Ransolm, and Rey and Finn were too enthralled by the race to make further comments. This one was a flip into freestyle, and Kylo was on comfortable footing again with his signature stroke to close out the race. He came off the wall like a submarine missile, and when the two men surfaced it was clear he’d already started closing the gap, surging in energy even as Ransolm began fading a bit. Half the pool length and he’d closed the gap completely, the legendary rivals going into their last 25 meters in unnerving synchronization again. The crowd had morphed from holding its collective breath to screaming at a decibel level that Rey was fairly certain was going to permanently damage her eardrums.

Finn was whooping Casterfo’s name, shamelessly cheering against his own teammate—understandable as it was unusual, considering Kylo already had ten times more medals than most Olympic athletes could ever hope to have. Beside him, Rey found herself uncharacteristically silent, breathless and with a heart rate that probably rivaled the two men currently battling for gold—even though she was standing still. For once, and to her surprise, she didn’t know _which_ outcome she wanted, which man she was truly rooting for, or why she was a bundle of jangling nerves, even more so than before her own race.

Kylo and Ransolm were so close for the duration that it was impossible to tell if one was inching ahead of the other. If Rey could have spared a glance at a screen, the moving digital line they superimposed over footage might give her some idea, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the actual race. This was one for the history books—someday she’d be able to tell people she’d seen it like this—all the loud, messy, once-in-a-lifetime chaos of a live Olympic event.

Everyone in the aquatic center was on their feet as the two men neared the wall, as their fingertips brushed it—and it was too much of a dead tie to identify the winner with the naked eye. A roar went up, one that sounded like a mix of jubilation and disappointment, and Rey’s eyes swiveled up to the jumbotron.

Kylo had lost to Ransolm—again—by a mere hundredth of a second—again.

Finn gave a low whistle. “I gotta say, Ren’s got some shit luck in the IM.”

“I imagine tying Anakin’s record should go a good way towards consoling him.”

“Still, his bathroom door better watch out.”

Rey huffed out a laugh, but kept her gaze fixed on the screen. Kylo had yanked off his goggles and swim caps, dark hair spilling messily around his face, one arm propped on a lane divider and mouth open as he panted for breath. He looked a bit shellshocked, like he hadn’t yet processed the race results, a furrow settling between his eyebrows as he blinked up at the board. His mouth closed and opened again, and then his forehead smoothed out all at once and he looked almost—if Rey didn’t know better she would say _relieved_.

But that couldn’t be.

Kylo’s arm slid off the divider as he sunk back down into the water and glided to the other side of his lane, where Ransolm had both arms propped on the divider facing him, looking very serious. They clasped forearms for a moment, both bringing their free arm around to pat the other on the shoulder—a gesture worlds apart from the last Olympic games when Kylo had stormed out of the pool without even looking at Ransolm.

“Huh,” Finn remarked next to her, struck speechless with the same surprise that was undoubtedly pervading the entire room.

“Told you,” Rey found herself saying, a little smugly.

* * *

Rey parted ways with Finn in the back hallway, telling him she’d take a later bus back to the Village since she hadn’t had time to shower between her race and medal ceremony. And it was the truth—but she found herself dawdling, leaving in her conditioner longer than necessary, standing still under the hot stream of water for a length of time bordering on ridiculous. She dressed by her locker and decided she needed to blow-dry her hair, even though leaving it wet would have been perfectly reasonable in the dry heat of the LA summer night. She sat on the bench next to her locker and scrolled through her phone for a while—Luke had texted his congratulations and an invitation to join him and his sister for breakfast the next morning at their hotel. But it wasn’t until Rey drifted back to the mirrors with her small makeup bag that she finally admitted to herself the reason why she was dawdling.

She froze with her mascara wand to her eyelashes, a small, self-conscious laugh slipping out of her mouth—thankfully the women’s locker room was empty at this time of night. Rey straightened, frowning at her reflection. Even _if_ she managed to talk to Kylo that night—and that in itself would be a small miracle with the amount of press he was currently doing—it would only be for a moment. It wasn’t like he’d even have time to notice what she looked like. Not that he’d notice that on a _regular day_ , but—

“What are you doing?” Rey whispered to her reflection, furiously, shifting on her feet before deciding that since she’d already finished one eye, it was only logical to finish the other, instead of removing all her makeup.

It definitely wasn’t because of Kylo.

There might be cameras somewhere.

By the time she returned to her locker to finish packing up her bag, the men’s medal ceremony was well over and the TV in the locker room lounge area was tuned to a press conference. Kylo sat alone behind the table, squinting a little against the bright camera flashes every time he answered a question. Rey moved closer to the TV, perching on the edge of a couch and dropping her duffel at her feet.

A reporter in the front row was asking, “Kylo, there’s been some discussion of touchpad accuracy in these games with all the close finishes. Do you feel this might have affected the results of your race tonight?”

Kylo ran a hand through his hair, frowning. “I don’t think that’s a discussion we need to be having. Close finishes are inevitable in this sport. This was Casterfo’s gold tonight; I’m not going to protest that. Do I wish it’d been mine? Absolutely, just like all the other men in that pool. That’s just how it goes.” Kylo’s body language was tense, as though he was dreading each question, but at the same time he had an unusually mellow tone to his voice, as if exhaustion had softened the intensity of his competitiveness.

“You claimed the world title in the individual medley ahead of Casterfo the last two years. Are you looking forward to another rematch in the future to prove you’ve still got it in you?”

“That would depend on Casterfo’s retirement status.” Kylo’s mouth curled up in the ghost of a smile. “He’s got a few years on me.”

“Speaking of retirement status, you’re only 29. Can you confirm that you’ll be competing in 2028 in Paris?”

Kylo frowned. “No, I can’t, but I’m open to the possibility. I won’t be making any hard-and-fast decision on that anytime soon.”

“Kylo, how are you going to celebrate this milestone?”

Kylo sat up straighter, running a hand through his hair again. “No celebrating for me. I’m not done yet.”

“How are you feeling about the medley relay coming up on Saturday?”

“Confident. We’ve got a great group of men lined up for the heats tomorrow, and we’ve got the necessary talent across the board to take gold.”

“What does it mean to you personally to tie your grandfather’s almost-50-year-old record?”

A muscle twitched in Kylo’s jaw, and he took a moment to answer. “It’s a lot to take in. It’s what I’ve been aiming for my whole life. But like I said, I’m not done yet.”

“What do you think your grandfather would say today, if he’d been able to see you tie his record, carry on the family legacy?”

There was a long silence. Kylo sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, and a strange look crossed his face.

“This is bullshit,” he mumbled, but loudly enough that the microphone picked it up, and the live feed apparently didn’t have enough lag for the network to censor it.

There was a stunned silence in the pressroom, one stray camera flash, and then—

“I’m not doing this,” Kylo said, shoving back his chair and striding offscreen, leaving a dumbstruck crowd behind. The universal shock only lasted for a few seconds before the packed room erupted into a confused cacophony as reporters began asking questions to no one in particular in at least a dozen different languages.

Phasma, Kylo’s tall, platinum-blonde publicist, moved swiftly towards the microphone, an artificially serene expression on her face despite her client’s abrupt departure. “I’m afraid those are all the questions Mr. Ren will be answering tonight,” she said in a crisp, professional tone. “Thank you for your time.”

She straightened as the press began throwing questions at her, cameras flashing again as she was joined by Snoke, who leaned over to whisper something in her ear. Phasma nodded and they exited the same direction Kylo had.

Rey sat staring at the screen as it cut to general Olympic coverage, trying to process what she’d just witnessed. Kylo had tied his grandfather’s medal record, the legacy he’d been chasing his whole life, and when it was time to bask in the glory he’d up and walked away from it. Most people would probably conclude that he was upset he’d had to settle for a silver in the individual medley yet again—despite his protests to the contrary—but Rey had the distinct feeling something deeper was happening.

In any case, there was no time to waste. She shouldered her duffel and headed for the private back entrance the athletes used to access their transportation without running into a crowd of fans or paparazzi.

Rey hovered inside the glass double doors for a moment, irresolute, wondering if she should just forget the whole thing and head straight for the bus. She placed a hand on the door handle, but shot a glance over her shoulder, heart stuttering in her chest at the sight of Kylo walking down the empty hallway towards her—a ridiculous reaction on her part, considering that running into him was her intention in standing there.

Kylo was scowling down at his phone so he didn’t notice her until he was just a few feet away.

“Rey,” he said, stopping short, the word low and breathy like it had been startled out of him.

Rey shifted the strap of her duffel on her shoulder. “I was hoping I could speak to you for a moment.”

His gaze wandered above her head, fixing on something beyond her, on the other side of the glass doors. “This isn’t a good time, Rey.” Kylo sidestepped her and pushed open the door she wasn’t blocking.

Rey stared after him. Maybe her timing wasn’t the greatest, but this wasn’t the reaction she’d expected at all. Before embarrassment could get the better of her, she was out the door, trotting to catch up with his long strides.

“It’ll just take a minute,” she insisted.

He glanced down at her over his shoulder, mouth twisting in what could have been either irritation or amusement, but he didn’t slow his pace. He was headed for a black town car pulled up to the curb. The rear passenger door facing them stood open, illuminating inside the vehicle, and Rey could see Snoke already seated in the back, his eerie grey gaze focused not on Kylo but on her. A shiver of fear she couldn’t explain ran down her spine and as Kylo stopped at the curb to hand his bag to the driver, Rey seized his elbow with inexplicable urgency.

“Kylo.” She waited until he met her gaze. “ _Please_.”

He stared down at her for a moment, then, wordlessly, folded his long limbs into the backseat of the car. Rey watched him, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling oddly rejected. She dipped her chin down, trying to keep the hurt off her face.

“Do you have a ride back to the Village?”

Rey’s head jerked up to find Kylo looking at her expectantly. “Um, yeah.” She shifted her bag again. “I’m taking the bus.”

The corner of Kylo’s mouth curled up, the motion so faint she nearly missed it. “No, you’re not.” He turned his head away from her then, and his sudden change in tone from soft to harsh was so startling Rey flinched before she realized he wasn’t speaking to her. “Get out.”

There was a silence, and Rey couldn’t see Snoke’s face but she could hear the silky coldness of his voice. “What did you just say to me, Kylo Ren?”

“I said,” Kylo replied with deadly calm. “Get. Out. Of. The. Fucking. Car.”

There was an extended, terrifying moment of absolute quiet during which Rey stood frozen and Kylo’s fist clenched in his lap, then Snoke threw open his door and climbed out of the car with surprising agility for his advanced age. The light from inside the car cast sinister shadows across his face, and his expression was murderous as he leant down to say to Kylo, “You and I are going to have a _chat_ in the morning, Kylo Ren.”

“I look forward to it,” Kylo snapped, and while Rey stood there gaping Snoke slammed the door and stalked off to find a taxi.

“Jober can take your bag.” Kylo sounded bone-weary all of a sudden.

Rey started when she realized the driver was already standing at her elbow, patiently waiting for her bag with a perfectly blank expression, like he hadn’t just witnessed the hostile exchange between Kylo and his coach. It was possible explosive arguments between them were a common occurrence, but something about Snoke’s reaction told her they weren’t.

Kylo had already made room for her, sliding across the seat to the spot his coach had vacated—and this hadn’t been Rey’s intention at all but it appeared to be happening anyway—so she relinquished her bag and climbed in next to him.

The rich scent of leather enveloped her, and Rey glanced around as she buckled her seatbelt. The interior was upholstered all in black with chrome trim, the seats were ridiculously plush, and the overall effect seemed to belong more in a high-end limousine than a town car.

“You travel in style,” Rey remarked, trying for a casual tone, eyeing the closed divider which separated them from the driver as he reentered the vehicle, pulling out of the parking lot and into traffic. “I’ve never seen an Upsilon in person before.”

Kylo glanced around the interior of the car like he’d never seen it before. “Yes, well. No point in taking the team bus when my driver’s already in LA.”

Rey’s eyebrows shot up. “You keep a _driver_?”

“Only part-time. I find it easier to let someone else navigate through the paparazzi.”

He spoke in a shockingly offhand manner, and Rey had always known they were from two different worlds, but she’d never experienced it quite so tangibly until this very moment.

She twisted her hands nervously in her lap. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?” Kylo was looking out his window, head turned away from her.

“Kick your coach out of the car.”

“Of course I didn’t _have_ to.” His tone was so snobbish that all Rey’s nervousness evaporated at once, irritation taking its place.

“I just _meant_ ,” Rey snapped, “don’t feel like you did me some huge favor. _I’m_ not too good to fraternize with the plebeians on the team bus.”

Kylo huffed out a breath and turned to look at her. He had this uncanny habit of finding Rey’s anger more amusing than vexing, and she shifted in her seat, his reaction only serving to irritate her more. Kylo said nothing, either in defense of himself or to prompt her to get to the point of whatever she’d wanted to speak with him about—and that might have been the most annoying thing of all.

Rey turned her head away to look out the window at the illuminated buildings lining the street as they inched their way through city traffic towards the freeway. “I just wanted to say thank you,” she said, with bad grace. “For putting me in contact with your uncle.”

There was a heavy silence. “You weren’t supposed to know that,” he said at last, voice a soft rumble, and Rey’s fingers clutched at her seatbelt strap reflexively as a strange, pleasant shiver shot down her spine. When did the sound of his voice start _doing_ that? She was afraid to look at him.

“I’m not an idiot,” she rejoined, masking the shakiness in her voice with tartness.

“I wasn’t implying that you were.”

“Why wasn’t I supposed to know?” Rey blurted out the question before she could stop herself. She could _feel_ his eyes on her but she didn’t dare look away from the window. “I mean...you could have just asked for my number directly.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.”

Rey whipped her head around, mouth already open to protest, but he spoke again before she could. “Don’t deny it. You laughed in my face when I suggested it.”

Rey frowned. “In my experience, things that sound too good to be true usually are.”

Kylo sighed softly, shifting down in his seat so he could tip his head back against the headrest. “That’s why.”

Rey studied his profile in the dark, the strangely aristocratic line of his nose alternately highlighted and shadowed by the passing streetlights outside. He kept his eyes fixed ahead as he added, “I didn’t want you to feel like you _owed_ me.”

His mouth twisted bitterly around that particular word, and Rey knew he was intentionally echoing her. She should feel relief—she had, after all, been worried about what he wanted from her. Instead, her stomach was twisted into a bigger confusion of knots than ever, a sensation that only increased when he turned to look at her.

“Because you don’t.” There was something so blazingly intense about his expression, even in the dim light, and it was half a plea, half a demand, when he added, “Tell me you know that.”

Words stuck in Rey’s throat and all she could manage was a nod. She was getting that feeling she’d gotten the last time she’d spoken to him, that this wasn’t entirely about her, that there was some hidden, mirrored pain they shared despite all appearances to the contrary. Despite all his efforts to conceal it—and though Rey couldn’t begin to guess what it was, she had a creeping suspicion it had something to do with his coach.

They were quiet for so long, each staring out their own window, that Rey began to wonder if their entire trip back to the Village would be spent this way, now that she’d already spoken her piece. They weren’t friends—they were barely even acquaintances—and Rey didn’t know if this was his usual way, if she should fill up the silence with inane chatter, if she should whip out her phone and start fake-texting, if she should—

“Are you going to do it?” His question was soft, but abrupt enough to startle her.

“Do what?”

“Hire my uncle as your coach.”

“Oh. Yes. I mean—nothing’s official yet.”

“Yes, I remember. You’re waiting for those endorsements.” His tone was wry, but Rey got the sense it was aimed more at those soulless advertising endeavors he was so disdainful of than at her. “So what’s your plan moving forward?”

“My plan?” Rey repeated blankly.

Kylo finally turned to look at her again. “I assume you’re aware you can no longer compete on the collegiate level when you’re receiving endorsements.”

“Yes, I’m very aware of that, thank you,” Rey replied irritably. She’d spent the last several months agonizing over the decision, but much as she loved competing on her university’s swim team, the benefit of no longer having Unkar as a coach far outweighed everything she’d be giving up. “I got one good year in, and that’ll have to be enough for me. I can still train with my team, I just won’t be able to swim in meets with them.”

“Interesting.” His tone sounded casually neutral, but when Rey looked at him, his lips were contorting in that way that told her he was holding back a smile. “That happens to be exactly what I did at Stanford.”

Rey blinked, taking a slow breath in and out. “I know.”

“Hmmmm,” he said, the sound rumbling up from his chest.

Rey rolled her eyes. “Ugh, I know where you’re going with this. Just spit it out.”

And he didn’t smile—because he never smiled, really—but his eyes crinkled up at the corners. “I just seem to remember you saying you weren’t a fan of mine.”

Rey crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t need to be a _fan_ to know about your career. It’d be impossible to exist in the swimming world and not know. You’re _inescapable_.” When Kylo huffed out an amused breath at that, Rey’s tone turned resentful. “No need to get all smug about it; that wasn’t a compliment!”

“I didn’t think it was,” he said placidly. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when you pay me a compliment.”

Rey’s mouth opened and closed. “Besides,” she spluttered, electing to ignore that, “I’m in an extremely unusual position here. It’s not like I had much precedent to go by. So you had to do.”

“I’m so glad my accomplishments are adequate enough for you in this one respect,” Kylo rejoined stiffly.

Rey stared at him. The line of his jaw was tight and he wasn’t looking at her and it was possible she was imagining things but it really _seemed_ that he was genuinely injured by her frequent indifference and occasional hostility towards his achievements.

Which was _ridiculous_. He had the entire world stroking his ego; why was it so important to him that she do it as well?

“Don’t be absurd,” she muttered at last, at a loss for what else to say.

“Have you shared this plan with my _uncle_ yet?”

Rey frowned at the disparaging note in his tone. “That’s none of your business,” she said frostily.

“So you haven’t.”

The satisfied curl of his lips made Rey’s fingers twitch, ridiculously, into a fist. What was she going to do— _punch him_ in the back of his own car while he was giving her a lift home? She’d never met someone who tested her patience so thoroughly, and that included Unkar Plutt on his worst days. It was a herculean effort, but she kept her mouth—and her body—still.

“I only ask because Skywalker was very opposed to my taking endorsement deals. In fact, that was probably the root cause of at least half our conflict. He thought I was selling out, that I didn’t need the money or the attention, that I could use a few years competing on the collegiate circuit.”

“Maybe you could’ve,” Rey said tartly.

Kylo sprawled back in his seat, spreading his hands wide across his knees, and there—there was the arrogant asshole who’d been increasingly difficult to spot lately. “Does it look like I made the wrong decision?”

“Yes, it kind of does,” Rey snapped, and it was worth it for the look of shock that swiftly drowned out the pride on his face. “Maybe you will go down as the greatest Olympian of all time, whatever that’s worth when it seems to me like all it’s done is make you a deeply unhappy person. Was it really worth it to cut yourself off from your entire family, and basically everyone except your...” Rey waved a hand in the air, grasping for words, “...your _fucking creepy_ coach. I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t get it, Kylo. I don’t get it.”

He was all wide-eyed, silent astonishment after that outburst, so Rey forged on before she could think better of it. “I’m not going to pretend like I know you from watching you on TV for most of my life, but going by public persona, Ben Solo was at least fifty percent less of an asshole than you are. Ever since Snoke’s been your coach it’s like.” Rey flapped her hands vaguely. “ _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ or something.” She twisted in her seat to face him fully. He had an indecipherable expression on his face, lips pressed together as if holding something in. “Is that it? Is he some kind of alien holding you hostage? Blink once if you need help.”

He did blink then—an instinct, a coincidence—and Rey would have laughed if Kylo didn’t give a humorless chuckle first, reaching a hand up to run through his hair. She stared at him, struck with the uncomfortable feeling that her joke hadn’t missed the mark as widely as she’d meant it to.

But Kylo shifted the subject back on track before she could examine that too closely. “My uncle’s methods and my own were fundamentally incompatible. I hope the two of you will be able to find more common ground.”

Rey scoffed, twisting her fingers into her seatbelt again.

“I mean it, Rey,” he said gravely. “I know you need those endorsements. Don’t let him give you shit about that.”

“He won’t!” she protested, even as she was aware how bizarre it was that it was she, who hadn’t even met Luke Skywalker in person yet, defending him to his own flesh and blood. “I told him and he didn’t say anything against it. _And_ he insisted on coaching me pro bono.” Kylo was the first person she’d told that to, and she didn’t want to think about why her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit it to her friends, yet she could share it without reservation with the infuriating enigma of a man sitting next to her.

Kylo raised an eyebrow. “Have you considered that he offered that in hopes you’d eschew endorsements?”

A lance of doubt shot through her for the first time. So far, she and Luke had only had that initial, informal conversation, and in retrospect Kylo’s interpretation of his uncle’s offer to coach her for free _could_ be accurate. Nevertheless, Rey lifted her chin stubbornly. “We don’t have to agree on everything.”

Kylo gave a noncommittal shrug. “I wouldn’t have suggested him as a coaching option for you if I thought it’d be an unmitigated disaster.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Rey said wryly, even as she felt herself softening towards him again. “I really am grateful, you know,” she added, meeting his eyes with open sincerity. “I’m awful at showing it but….” She looked down at her hands folded in her lap, then finished quietly, “It’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”

Suddenly afraid to look at him, Rey kept her eyes on her hands, but all her other senses were preternaturally attuned to his reaction. His breath hitched softly and he shifted in his seat, and despite the awkward tension radiating between them Rey couldn’t help feeling secretly amused by how equally terrible they were at displaying vulnerability.

“Anyway.” Rey tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry if Luke being here is causing you any discomfort.”

 _That_ startled a laugh out of him—a genuine one, by the sound of it. “No, you’re not.” His voice was oddly warm, almost...affectionate.

Rey’s cheeks heated, and she was grateful it was too dim inside the car for Kylo to tell. “Fine,” she sniffed. “That’s the last time I apologize to _you_.”

The corner of his mouth curled up, and she could just make out the dimple that appeared on his cheek and a flash of teeth in the dark, and Rey’s stomach flip-flopped in a very unhelpful manner. “Good,” he said, the word a quiet rumble, and his eyes flicked over her in a way that did nothing to calm her nerves.

Rey’s mouth opened and closed in a motion that probably made her look like a fish gasping for air, but to her relief—or maybe disappointment—Kylo let the moment pass when he tore his eyes away, sobering. “I have more pressing things to worry about than my uncle,” he said morosely.

Rey was struck speechless again, for a very different reason this time. What did one _say_ to someone who’d just tied with the greatest Olympian of all time _and_ lost a very important race _and_ dramatically stormed out of a press conference in a way that had no doubt already lit the internet on fire? “Um, yeah...I saw that. Do you—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said flatly.

Well, that was a relief. Rey gnawed on her lip for a second. “It really was a great race. I don’t think I breathed once the whole time.”

Kylo scowled. “It was a fucking shitshow.”

“You had _one_ slightly flawed turn.”

Kylo jerked his head, flipping his dark hair out of his face. “That’s all it takes. Can’t afford anything less than perfection at this level.”

There was something unsettlingly blank in the way he said those words, like he was parroting someone else. Rey watched his jaw tense, her eyebrows furrowing with concern. “Nobody’s perfect,” she protested, startling even herself with her own vehemence.

Kylo turned to look at her, his eyes flickering over every inch of her face. “Aren’t they?” he breathed, voice so low she might have imagined the words.

An embarrassing, strangled noise escaped Rey’s throat, and she immediately broke eye contact to fake-cough into her hand. “No,” she managed once she’d recovered herself. “Not even the greatest of all time.” She risked a glance back at him, letting a small, teasing smile ease onto her face so he’d know her words weren’t intended as a barb.

Kylo heaved a sigh, tipping his head back against the seat and squeezing his eyes shut. “ _That’s_ bullshit,” he muttered, and Rey wisely stayed silent, all too aware that pursuing that particular topic would dance too close to the disastrous press conference he didn’t want to discuss.

“And don’t patronize me.” Now his tone had turned surly. “Don’t pretend you weren’t rooting for your friend Casterfo.”

“What?” Rey said, bemused. “I wouldn’t call him my friend. I just met him for the first time today.”

“Really.” Kylo’s eyes were still closed, the corners of his lips turned down like there was something sour in his mouth. “The two of you looked pretty friendly to me.”

“Like _you_ would know what being friendly looks like!” Rey exclaimed.

Kylo’s eyes popped open and he looked genuinely, absurdly affronted. Rey sat back, raising an eyebrow, daring him to attempt an argument in favor of his nonexistent affability. He considered her for a moment, rolling his tongue across the inside of his cheek, then angled his head away to look out the window again, a silent admission of defeat. Rey was left staring at the dark, perfect waves of his hair, mind roiling with a hundred questions she wanted to ask him. Why had he walked out of his press conference? Why was he so unhappy after achieving the goal that’d consumed his life? Was he upset the world was making a big deal out of him tying Anakin’s record when he was on track to defeat it by the end of competition? What strange hold did Snoke have over him? Why had he reconciled with his mother but not his uncle? Why was she here, sitting next to him in his ludicrously posh town car as they sniped at each other and accidentally stumbled into common ground by turns?

Rey sighed and looked out her own window as the car turned off Westwood and into the UCLA campus housing area that was serving as the Olympic Village. She wasn’t going to get an answer to any of those questions tonight, or possibly ever. As the driver pulled up to the curb, the logistic difficulty of walking into the Village with Kylo Ren suddenly struck her like a tidal wave. The Village itself was under tight security, but there could be paparazzi on the street or sidewalk, and even if they managed to get in undetected, there were ten thousand athletes with phones inside what was supposed to be their safe haven. There was no escaping social media.

Rey put a hand on the chrome door handle but hesitated, turning back to Kylo. “Should we go in separately? I mean, I don’t know what to—I’m not used to this sort of thing.” Which part of all this she was specifically referring to she left hanging unspoken in the air, intentionally vague. Whether simply dodging paparazzi, or attempting to avoid being spotted with the incredibly famous person she’d been mistakenly romantically linked with—Rey didn’t know how to navigate _any_ of it.

Kylo shook his head. “I’m not getting out.”

Rey frowned in confusion. It was nearly midnight. She couldn’t fathom what he would possibly be leaving to do at this time of night, when most of the athletes who were still in the middle of competition were already sound asleep. Not that it was any of her business. The rational part of her knew she should politely thank him and get out of the car, walk away and stifle her curiosity about the private life of this man she barely knew but—“Don’t you have relay heats tomorrow?” she blurted out.

Kylo’s eyes narrowed, the expression on his face a mix of suspicion and faint amusement. “Yes,” he said slowly, and Rey immediately regretted her very existence.

“Right,” she muttered, clutching blindly for the door handle in an attempt to make a hasty escape.

“I’m going to see my mother.”

“ _Now_? Isn’t she staying at the Ritz-Carlton downtown?” Rey froze. Apparently she’d lost any filter she’d once had on her tongue. But Leia Organa’s hotel was a short ten-minute drive from the aquatic center, while the athlete's village was on the opposite end of the city from both.

His eyebrows drew together, and now he was all suspicion. “How do you know that?”

“Um.” Rey’s eyes darted around the car like the leather upholstery could provide some convincing lie, but it was beautifully, luxuriously unhelpful. “She and Luke invited me there for breakfast tomorrow.” She was angry at herself for sounding so _guilty_ , like she’d done something wrong. If he’d directly asked, she would have told him sooner, but declining to volunteer the information was perfectly fine. It wasn’t _her_ fault he had such a damaged relationship with his family.

Kylo’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, but his face gave away nothing.

Rey refused to apologize for doing nothing wrong—and on top of that she’d just finished declaring she’d never apologize to Kylo again—so instead she wet her lips, stalling for precious seconds to collect her thoughts—and immediately realized that was a mistake when Kylo’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her breath embarrassingly loud in the quiet car, like she’d just climbed out of the pool after a particularly taxing race. “You, um,” she said hoarsely, managing by sheer force of will to keep her eyes on his, “you just went an hour out of your way to bring me home.”

“Yes.” His voice was deep and sure and Rey blinked, startled. She’d expected him to brush it off—say he enjoyed long car rides to relax after a stressful day, or that he’d impulsively decided just a few minutes ago to visit his mother, _anything_ that wasn’t Kylo Ren sitting twelve inches away from her, taking up more space than any normal person had a right to with his hulking body—so close she could smell the shampoo he’d used to scrub the chlorine out of his perfect hair, looking at her with an open intensity that was at once thrilling and terrifying.

“I should,” Rey mumbled, grabbing for the door handle again, because she needed to get out of the car immediately before she did... _something_. “I should let you go.” Her fingers closed around it at last, and, flooded with a confusing mix of relief and disappointment, she launched herself out the door and onto the curb so fast she nearly collided with the driver, who had apparently been standing patiently next to the car with her duffel bag for some time. Rey murmured her thanks as she shifted the strap onto her shoulder. Her mind was clearer now that she’d put physical space between herself and Kylo, and she found she could compose herself enough to duck down, one hand resting lightly on top of the open door to keep her balance, and say earnestly, “Thank you. For the lift and...everything.”

Kylo had a crease between his eyebrows and his gaze had grown a little distant, but he nodded in acknowledgement.

“It really was a beautiful race, you know. It felt like...I was watching Ben Solo again.”

Kylo’s eyes snapped to hers and she gave him a tentative smile, hoping he could see on her face that those words _meant_ something to her. He looked a bit stupefied, so she decided to beat a hasty retreat before he could recover. “Goodnight then!” she blurted out, spinning on her heel and taking off for the security screening area as quickly as she dared, trying not to examine too closely what exactly it was that had shifted between them during that car ride, or why she was still breathing as heavily as if she’d just shattered her own 100-free record again.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LISTEN I know this took me a really long time but I promised reylo interaction in this chapter so I couldn't split it again or all we would've gotten was TWO SEXUALLY CHARGED GLANCES ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM. The other reason it took so long is because I spent a good month working on my reylo secret santa fic, which if you haven't read, please go read it! It's a wild west AU and I'm very proud of it.
> 
> Lest you think I'm just making up the locations in this fic willy-nilly, I've actually put a bizarre amount of research into it for a silly Olympics AU, and I frequently reference the LA 2024 website (the host city is still up in the air right now but the proposal is very detailed so all of my locations are accurate to that). Plus I live in the LA area so ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is [No Mythologies to Follow by MO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuI6oAiI1A), [Ride by Black Coast](https://soundcloud.com/blackcoast/black-coast-ride-ft-m-maggie), and [Lifetime Ago by Greg Laswell](https://soundcloud.com/greglaswell/lifetime-ago).
> 
> I know this chapter is a lot to process considering it's 11,000 WORDS LOL WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF, but I'd love to hear any and all of your comments/thoughts/speculation. Why DID Kylo storm out of his press conference? Is Rey ever gonna PUNCH UNKAR IN THE FACE?? Is Snoke aCTUALLY a body snatcher??? Most importantly, when is Rey gonna realize she should've spent that car ride MAKING OUT WITH KYLO??


	5. Anakin Skywalker

At first glance, Leia Organa was the opposite of her son in every respect: petite and fine-featured and graceful in the compact, measured way of a former elite gymnast, with a warmth of personality that radiated from her in ready smiles and even a motherly hug when she greeted Rey.

But Rey was barely in her presence for more than a minute before the resemblance that was so difficult to see on the surface made its appearance, and it was impossible to deny that Ben Solo, though he favored his father more in looks, was every bit his mother’s son. He’d inherited—or perhaps learned—her regal bearing, that innate ability to captivate a room merely by standing still in it. They shared the same tiny furrow between their brows when deep in thought, the same wry curl of the mouth when they found something amusing, but it was the eyes that struck Rey the most—they had the same eyes. Dark and piercing, intense and warm by turns, and if Rey had thought she could put the son out of her mind by meeting his mother, she’d been sorely mistaken.

Following Luke’s advice, Rey had arrived at the Ritz-Carlton as incognito as possible, instructing her Lyft driver to drop her off at the service entrance in back, leaving him an extremely generous tip in the hopes it would encourage him _not_ to tweet where he’d driven her. She’d left all her team gear safely in her room, dressed instead in denim cut-offs and a tank top to fit the mid-August Los Angeles heat, which was rapidly on the climb despite the early hour. She’d hidden her face behind a pair of oversized sunglasses and her hair beneath a burgundy USC baseball cap—which probably wasn’t the best disguise, now that she considered it, but it was the only hat she’d had lying around that didn’t have _Team USA_ emblazoned across the front.

She wasn’t built for all this subterfuge.

Leia Organa had been standing just inside the service door, looking out of place in the spartan hallway used by the hotel staff, her greying dark hair swept into an elegant braided updo, effortlessly beautiful in a sapphire blue caftan that floated around her like a cloud. Rey felt immediately self-conscious, underdressed and a head taller than the famous woman in front of her, all gangly limbs and no social graces, but her embarrassment vanished in a heartbeat when Leia stepped forward to greet her with a hug and a smile.

“It’s so good to meet you, Rey,” she said as she embraced her. “I know you were expecting Luke, but he’s running late. I think he’s forgotten how much time it takes to get around this city.” Leia arched an eyebrow, a hint of fond exasperation on her face, and Rey got the sense this was a woman who’d never been a minute late in her life. “So,” Leia continued briskly, “let’s head up to breakfast. I hope you’re hungry?”

“Ravenous,” Rey said, grinning.

“Good.” Leia looked pleased.

Rey trailed after her through the maze-like corridors, curiosity getting the better of her immediately. “Luke isn’t staying here with you?”

“Last-minute hotel bookings are difficult to come by during the Olympics, and my brother’s not one to leverage his name to get his way. Besides,” she added, leading the way up a short staircase and holding a door open for Rey, “I knew my son would be more inclined to visit me here if I was alone.”

Rey paused to glance down at her, the wry curve of her lips and placid expression on her face belied by the spark of hurt in her eyes, leaving Rey to wonder for the thousandth time just how deep the family schism ran. “Oh,” she said softly, unsure what else to say, even as she bit her tongue against asking if Leia’s son had paid her a visit the night before.

They made their way through the lobby in silence and were safely ensconced in the elevator before Leia spoke again. “Forgive the pretentiousness of all this.” She waved a hand that was clearly meant to encompass all aspects of the hotel. “I don’t usually stay in places like this, but it’s so close to the aquatic center. And the privacy it offers….” She trailed off, raising an eyebrow at Rey. “Well, you can imagine how important that is at times like this.”

Rey laughed, brushing her palms against her shorts self-consciously. “I’m beginning to understand, yeah.”

“How are you handling it?” There was such a look of concerned understanding on Leia’s face that Rey’s heart gave a painful twist in her chest. Was this what it was like to have a mother?

She let out a breath, watching the floor numbers tick upwards. “It’s...a lot. It’s strange. I’m trying to keep my focus on my swimming to center me. So I feel like... _me_ , not whatever version of me the world is seeing on TV.” She tilted her head to look at Leia. “But I’m sure you know all about that.”

Leia nodded thoughtfully. “It’s difficult. I’m not going to tell you it gets easier. But it becomes...normal. You learn to live with it. And from what I can see, you’re already doing a beautiful job.”

Rey pressed her lips together, failing to hold back a gratified smile, and mumbled her thanks.

“I think you’re fortunate in some ways it’s happening now, when you’re an adult,” Leia continued. “I was so young, I didn’t know what to do with it.” She heaved a sigh, her tone softening. “Ben was even younger.”

There was a lifetime of heartache in her tone, of love and regret and resignation, and Rey didn’t know what to say.

She was saved by the metallic _ding_ that indicated their arrival on the 23rd floor, and the doors slid open just in time for Leia to sweep through them and make her way briskly down the hallway. Rey scrambled after her, still feeling coltish and out of place, eyes darting around at her sumptuous surroundings as if she expected a bellhop to materialize out of the wall and throw her out on the street.

They settled at a table in a corner of the private club lounge reserved for occupants of the hotel’s upper-floor suites. It was mostly empty at this hour, and Rey took a seat by the window, alternating her attention between the impressive view of the early-morning sun highlighting the San Gabriel Mountains and attempting to identify the other famous occupants scattered around the lounge with their families—the actress-wife of an NBA player, a retired Stanley Cup winner, and someone who was very definitely Usain Bolt.

Leia mistook her curiosity for anxiety. “Don’t worry, Rey. No one here is going to ask for a picture or report who you ate breakfast with to TMZ.”

Rey let out a breath, leaning back in her chair and trying not to look overwhelmed. “Would you believe, I wasn’t even thinking about that.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Even though I should be.”

Leia reached over to give her hand a sympathetic pat. “Now,” she said, handing Rey a menu, “order whatever you want. I’m paying, and I won’t hear any protests about it.”

* * *

Rey was tucking into her French toast with gusto while Leia picked rather more delicately at an omelette when Luke Skywalker finally made his appearance.

“Well, aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes?”

Startled, Rey nearly dropped her fork, stopping mid-chew to stare up at her childhood hero. His hair was more grey than blond now, well-trimmed beard making him all but unrecognizable compared to the fresh-faced swimmer of his famous younger years—but his eyes were just the same, the piercing blue of them wise and kind and just the tiniest bit sad.

But he didn’t look sad now, a wide smile taking over his face as he held out his hand to Rey. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Rey. So sorry I’m late.”

Rey swallowed hurriedly and launched herself to her feet, taking his proffered hand and shaking it with enthusiasm. “No, no, thank you for inviting me! I only got here so early because of...you know, the whole Unkar thing,” she trailed off awkwardly, taking her seat again as Luke took his.

“It’s about time,” Leia remarked dryly, shaking her head at her twin. “I was beginning to think you’d been kidnapped by your taxi driver.”

“I walked, actually.” Luke shook out his napkin into his lap. “Wanted to take in the city sights and sounds again. It’s so different from home.”

Leia arched an unimpressed eyebrow. “You mean the sound of car horns and the sight of people pissing in the street?”

Rey choked on her orange juice, spluttering into her glass. Luke just smiled serenely at his sister, who had a droll expression on her face that struck Rey as uncannily similar to one she’d seen on Kylo Ren’s face before.

“Don’t listen to her,” Luke told Rey, a faux-conspiratorial note in his tone. “She loves this city. It’s the only reason she still lives here.”

Leia took a sip of her coffee, but she didn’t deny it.

“So, Rey.” Luke folded his hands in his lap. “That was quite a world record you swam last night.”

And maybe the proper response was a bashful brush-off, but Rey was proud of herself and there was nothing but admiration in _Luke Skywalker’s_ voice, and Rey couldn’t help it—she _beamed_.

“Thank you. Still not quite sure how I did it.” It wasn’t an attempt at false modesty, just a statement of fact. She shrugged, depositing another forkful of French toast into her mouth.

Luke’s eyes sparkled. “Think you could do it again?”

Rey swallowed her food, a slow smile dimpling her cheeks. “Hell, yeah!”

While they waited for Luke’s breakfast to arrive, they discussed her historic swim in enthusiastic detail before moving on to the medley relay she’d be swimming the next day. Leia ate quietly as they talked, watching them with the sort of fond indulgence of someone who had little knowledge of the topic. Rey quickly realized Luke was more than up-to-speed on the best swimmers internationally, their strengths and weaknesses, what strategy their coaches would likely employ. His self-exile from the swimming world hadn’t diminished his knowledge of the sport, and it appeared he’d never stopped thinking like a coach despite his sabbatical. Rey listened raptly to everything he had to say, but he listened just as much as he talked, prone more to gentle prompting than to direct instructions. Luke Skywalker couldn’t be any more diametrically opposed to Unkar Plutt in personality or demeanor, and for that Rey could almost cry.

In the middle of their discussion, Rey’s phone buzzed—once, twice, three times—muffled in her purse but loud enough that the vibration could be heard. “Sorry, sorry,” she mumbled, fishing it out to silence it, but her eye caught on the screen, lit up with a series of texts from Greer.

_are you still with the skywalkers?_

_did you see the news??_

_it’s about kylo_

_he fired snoke_

_everybody’s freaking out and i’m freaking out and i need you to freak out with me_

_WAIT did you know???_

_did he tell you on your romantic car ride last night?_

_FESS UP NIIMA_

Rey glanced up from her phone to find Leia watching her, eyebrows furrowed in that way that made her look so much like her son. “What is it, Rey?”

Rey took a second to find her voice. “It’s, um, it’s Greer. She’s saying that Kylo—um, Ben—he fired Snoke.” That last part left her mouth sounding more like a question than a statement of fact. Her eyes shifted between the Skywalker siblings, taking in their reactions. Luke’s eyebrows shot up, surprise and a hint of disbelief on his face, but Leia just pressed her lips together, giving a tiny, satisfied nod.

Luke stared at his sister. “You knew?”

Leia hushed him, shifting in her chair to get a good look at the TV on the wall playing Olympic coverage, which they had thus far been completely ignoring. Rey spun around in her chair, planting an elbow on the back as Luke moved to unmute the sound.

Sure enough, the Today Show had been interrupted by a special report from the NBC news desk, Lester Holt onscreen in the midst of delivering the breaking news as a short description rolled across the bottom in an endless loop of _KYLO REN AND LONGTIME COACH GALLIUS SNOKE PART WAYS MID-COMPETITION_.

“—unprecedented move,” Lester Holt was saying, “as there are usually contracts and other legal barriers in place to prevent shakeups like this mid-season, let alone mid-competition at the Olympic games. The official statement that’s been released is short on details at this time, so it’s unclear if this was a mutual decision or if there will be legal action stemming from it. We’ll be keeping you updated as this story develops.”

The TV cut back to the Today Show anchors interviewing members of the gymnastics team, and Rey blinked up at it. There was little doubt in her mind that this had _not_ been a mutual decision, but what exactly had prompted Kylo to suddenly fire his coach in the middle of competition was a mystery to her. It was ill-advised, it was impulsive, it was stirring up all kinds of drama—it was Kylo through and through.

Yet somehow, despite all that, Rey was happy for him, and a tiny bit wistful. He’d done what she hadn’t yet had the courage to do.

Leia and Luke were speaking in low, urgent voices behind her, and Rey twisted back around, staring down at a pool of maple syrup on her plate and feeling extremely awkward, an intruder in their private family matters.

“We had a discussion about it last night,” Leia was saying softly. “He wanted my opinion but he wouldn’t tell me what was prompting this or when he planned to do it.”

Luke sat back in his chair, scrubbing a hand over his beard. “Snoke’s going to sue him for breach of contract.”

“Ben knows that,” Leia said, quietly but with conviction.

Luke raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Rey poked at a now-cold piece of bacon with her fork, and all three of them sat in stunned, uneasy silence for a while.

She was attempting to invent some excuse to make an early exit and give them privacy when they were all startled out of their silence by the sound of the breaking news alert on the TV again.

“What now,” Luke muttered under his breath, and all three of them turned reluctant eyes to the screen.

The first thing Rey noticed was that Lester Holt looked flustered—a bizarre thing to see from a professional news anchor. He was apologizing for the interruption again, saying something about a developing story fifty years in the making, and Rey couldn’t quite concentrate on what he was saying when her eyes caught on the name _Anakin Skywalker_ scrolling across the bottom of the screen, brain slow to catch up with her eyes. How could a man who’d been dead for thirty years be breaking news?

“—documentation and video footage have surfaced,” Lester Holt was saying, “indicating that swimming legend Anakin Skywalker was using illegal steroids during the 1976 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee banned the use of certain performance-enhancing drugs in 1967 and began testing athletes during the 1968 Games. It’s unclear at this time how Skywalker slipped past the testing. The documents are currently under review by the IOC to determine their veracity, but it appears likely at this time that Skywalker will be posthumously stripped of the seven medals he won at the ’76 Games, and his medical records from ’72 and ’68 may be subject to review as well. Stay tuned for this developing story.”   

Rey heard Leia swear softly behind her, and she turned around to find the Skywalker twins equally aghast, first staring blankly at the screen then turning to each other, a silent look shared between them that seemed to Rey a search for affirmation that neither of them had known this secret of their father’s and kept it from the other.

Leia set her fork down belatedly, and it clattered against her plate as her hand shook. Luke reached out to take her hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“Ben knows,” she whispered.

Luke’s head swiveled to the other occupants scattered around the room, who were sneaking sidelong sympathetic glances at their table—much as famous people protected each other’s privacy, they were also aware this was the sort of earth-shattering news that made privacy impossible. Everything Anakin Skywalker was, his entire legacy, had just crumbled to pieces with one news report, and Rey realized with a sinking heart that his family would not escape unscathed. If there was one thing America loved more than putting someone on a pedestal, it was tearing them down from it.

“What makes you say that?” Luke asked, in a tone low enough that only Leia and Rey could hear him.

“This has Snoke written all over it.” The usual steel had returned to Leia’s voice as she drew herself up in her seat. “The timing is too convenient. Why would this 50-year-old information be released just minutes after news broke that Ben fired him? This is his revenge, I’d bet my life on it.”

“But why do you think Ben knew?” Luke pressed.

“There was something….” Leia’s gaze grew distant. “Last night. He seemed so sad about something. Resigned. I thought it was just his reaction to making such a large career change, potentially dealing with a huge lawsuit. I didn’t think—” Leia shook her head, frowning. “I should have seen there was more to it.”

“Leia,” Luke said, a gentle reproof. “He’s a grown man. He makes his own decisions.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Leia snapped, and Rey sunk lower in her chair, wishing she could vanish from the room entirely. “He’s still my son, and he doesn’t need to deal with the repercussions alone as long as I have anything to say about it.” She retrieved her phone from her purse and had it pressed to her ear in half a second, still and calm as a statue, betraying no sign of emotion but for a white-knuckled grip on her phone case.

Rey stayed perfectly still as well, watching her, hoping if she didn’t speak or possibly even breathe, no one would remember she was there.

Long seconds passed, and it was clear Leia’s son wasn’t answering his phone. She dialed a second time, then a third, and finally let his voicemail play so she could leave a message. “Ben, I just saw the news. _Please_ call me. I—” Leia’s voice faltered. “I just need to hear your voice. I need to know you’re okay. Please.” She paused for a few seconds, then added softly, “I love you.”

Leia hung up and clutched her phone in her hands, looking heartbroken and helpless.

Rey chewed on her lip, searching for something comforting to say. “He probably just doesn’t have his phone on him. Maybe he wanted to disconnect from the media frenzy for a bit.”

Leia nodded, attempting a small smile.

Luke gently extricated his sister’s phone from her hand, setting it on the table so he could take her hand in his again. “Rey’s right,” he said soothingly. “And on top of that, if you’re right about him knowing this, he probably doesn’t want to face you right now.”

Leia’s eyes sparkled with tears. “How can he think I’d care about _that_ ? I don’t care what the world thinks of us. Let them think we’re all frauds. I just need to know my boy is all right. You _know_ how he is, Luke. He’s so sensitive; he takes everything so deeply to heart. He’s not going to recover from this easily.”

Luke shifted in his seat, looking uneasy.

Leia tugged her hand free, reaching up to dash her tears away with the back of it. “Well,” she said briskly. “Crying is no help to anyone. I’m going to call Han, on the off chance—”

They all froze when Leia’s ringtone interrupted her, gazes falling on the screen as one, but neither Kylo’s true name or his adopted one came up on it. Rey squinted at it from upside down, making out only a P and an H before Leia picked it up.

The crisp tones of Kylo’s publicist came through the speaker loud and clear, so much so that Rey didn’t have to strain to hear both sides of the conversation. Phasma dispensed with pleasantries entirely, demanding, “Is he with you?”

Leia’s lips thinned, a displeased expression flickering across her face. “No, Phasma, he’s not with me, and he’s not answering my phone calls either. Should I take this to mean he didn’t fire you too?”

“No, he didn’t _fire me_ ,” Phasma said sharply, then paused, as if considering the idea for the first time. “At least—not yet. I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday.” Her tone turned brisk again. “In any case, he’s still my client for the time being, and I need to _find him_ so we can start on damage control immediately.”

“My son is not the one who took illegal steroids,” Leia said stiffly.

“Cut the shit, Leia. You of all people should know this is going to reflect badly on him. You think the public’s going to _care_ that testing is far more stringent now? We can release all the evidence we want that Kylo’s wins are all his own, but if the world doesn’t want to believe it they won’t believe it. He’s tainted by association now, don’t you see? He’s built his entire brand on the Skywalker legacy, and now he’s going down with it. Unless we _find him_ and sit him down for candid interviews _immediately_.”

“On that point at least I can agree with you,” Leia said. “I’m concerned for his safety.”

“I’m concerned for the safety of public and private property in his immediate vicinity,” Phasma said wryly. “He’s not taking my calls and he’s turned the location services off on his phone. I’ve had to resort to searching his name on social media. He broke a paparazzo’s camera and possibly their nose half an hour ago somewhere on Wilshire, then climbed into an Uber, and that’s the last trace I can find of him.”

“Maybe he’s going home for some privacy. I’ll head over there in case he shows up.”

“It’ll take you two hours to get to Malibu in all this traffic,” Luke said gently.

Leia sighed. “If he doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find him,” she said, mostly to her brother but also into her phone for Phasma’s benefit. “Much as it pains me to say it, the best course of action is to let him contact us when he’s ready.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Phasma protested. “I have an interview with NBC lined up for noon and ESPN directly after, and I need to brief him before.”

“Perhaps,” Leia said, with diplomatic patience, “you should have found him before scheduling interviews.”

“Kylo hired me to be proactive, not to sit around bemoaning bad press. No, I have another idea. Do you have Rey Niima’s phone number?”

Rey—who had spent the last few minutes half-listening to the conversation while immersed in the Kylo Ren tag on Twitter trying to locate the man who was causing so much distress—slowly raised her head at the sound of her name, meeting Leia’s confused gaze from across the table.

“Why?” Leia asked, with suspicion.

Phasma sounded supremely impatient. “Call it intuition. I have a feeling he might answer a call from her.”

Rey’s heart gave a strange flutter at that, speeding up to what felt like double time, cheeks heating as she dropped her eyes away from Leia, directing them anywhere that avoided her searching gaze. Where Phasma had gotten _that_ idea, Rey couldn’t imagine. Had Kylo talked about her? Or was it _that_ obvious that he felt... _something_ for her? Whatever the case, Rey couldn’t help feeling doubtful. If he didn’t want to speak to his own mother, why would he want to speak to _her_?

Leia’s steady voice interrupted Rey’s racing thoughts. “Rey is sitting right here with me.”

“ _Really_ ,” Phasma said, a note of surprise and curiosity in the word, and Rey breathed a sigh of relief that the woman had more pressing matters to distract her from this revelation. “Well, have her call him. Or text him. Whichever she thinks is better. Keep it vague, and urgent, like she needs him for something.”

Rey’s mouth went dry as Luke and Leia looked at her expectantly. “Um,” she whispered. “I don’t think that’s going to work. He knows I’m with you.”

“It’s worth a try,” Leia said. Her eyes went soft and sad again. “Please.”

Despite her reservations, and the awkwardness of the entire situation, Rey’s fingers closed around her phone as she debated with herself what exactly to do. It was difficult to concentrate with two sets of eyes on her, and with Phasma’s expectant silence on the other end of Leia’s phone feeling almost louder than her intimidating voice. Rey opened up the new contact screen and silently handed over her phone to Leia to input Kylo’s number there. Rey watched her, biting her lip as she debated with herself. Her number had been in Kylo’s possession at one point—that was how Luke had come by it, after all—but she had no way of knowing if he’d actually _saved_ it into his phone. If she called, it might just show up as an unknown number for him, and under the current circumstances, he’d never answer _that_.

By the time Leia handed her phone back, she’d made up her mind about the best strategy to employ, though it was directly opposed to everything Phasma had just instructed her to do.

_Hey, it’s Rey. I know you probably want to be alone right now, but I’m with your mother and she’s really worried about you. No one knows where you are, which I’m guessing is what you want. And that’s fine, but I’m just asking you to please answer this so I can tell your mum you’re like...alive and okay. Please._

Rey took a deep breath before hitting send, then, as an afterthought and in the spirit of honesty that she was attempting to establish, added a second message:

_Phasma is trying to find you too, obviously. I think I wasn’t supposed to tell you that until I find out where you are through some kind of tricky subterfuge or whatever but fuck that. I can put her off somehow if you want, just let me know. And answer me so I can tell Leia you’re okay. Did I mention how worried she is?_

Rey sat back in her chair. “Okay, I sent it. Now we just wait, I guess.”

Rey and Luke sat in anxious silence as Leia carried on a prickly conversation with Phasma. The two women had reached a stalemate—Phasma refusing to get off the phone until Rey had an answer from Kylo, and Leia too polite to hang up on her. Until she began to steer the conversation towards the question of just how much of this cover-up Phasma had been previously aware of, and suddenly Kylo’s publicist couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.

“Call me the instant you hear anything,” Phasma demanded, her voice drifting loud and clear from Leia’s phone speaker. “I know which hotel you’re staying in; I will not hesitate to physically track you down if I don’t hear back from you.”

Rey was distracted from hearing Leia’s answer by the sight of her phone screen lighting up with a message. Heart lurching in her chest, her eyes landed on the name _Ben Solo_ —which was how Leia had saved his contact info into her phone.

_Tell my mother I’m fine_ was all it said, but below that—the three dots indicating he was typing another message. Rey blew out a breath of relief. _Tell her I’m sorry but I just can’t talk to her at the moment. I need some time._

Rey scowled down at her screen, relief morphing into irritation. At least he’d answered, but it was still a dick move to ignore his mother’s clearly frantic calls, especially now that they had a tentative reconciliation after all the years of shit he’d put her through. Intellectually, Rey understood that people didn’t always act rationally or compassionately in a crisis, but as far as she could tell he’d brought most this calamity upon himself, and _he_ wasn’t the one who had to sit across the table from Leia, watching her eyes well up with tears.

Rey raised her head, meeting the now-clear eyes of Kylo’s put-upon mother, who was still vibrantly angry from Phasma’s non-admission of culpability. “He wants you to know he’s fine,” Rey said softly. “He’s sorry and he just needs a little time before he’s ready to talk to you about it.”

Leia seemed to collapse in relief as she exhaled, closing her eyes, all the tension leaving her small body even as she clutched at her brother’s hand again.

Rey glanced back down at her phone, and she had another set of messages.

_If it’s not too much to ask...I could use someone to talk to right now._

_Someone who’s not a family member or on my payroll._

_If you don’t have time that’s fine._

Rey chewed on the inside of her cheek before sending her answer. _Tell me where you are and I’ll consider it_.

_Nice try. Get in a cab and then I'll tell you._

Rey huffed out a frustrated breath.  _So glad you’re still capable of being a total ass even in a crisis._

She’d hit send in a sudden fit of temper, and now she sat staring at the message, feeling a bit of regret in case she’d scared him away. She was supposed to be cajoling at the moment, trying to lure him into giving up his location, and she was not doing a bang-up job of it so far. Much as she hated to admit it, she and Kylo were similar in some of the worst ways.

After a length of time which felt like nail-biting hours but was probably seconds, he answered.

_Wouldn’t want to disappoint you._

Rey pulled her bottom lip between her teeth to bite back the smile his words perversely prompted. _Asshole_ , she thought, but the word sounded alarmingly affectionate in her head.  _Give me a few minutes._

“Okay—” Rey started to say, the word dying in her mouth when she looked up to find Leia studying her with an inscrutable look on her face, head tilted to one side. Rey shifted in her chair, unsettled by those piercing eyes which apparently ran in the family. “Um.” She cleared her throat. “He’ll tell me where he is once I leave. He needs somebody...distanced from the situation, I guess. To talk to.”

One of Leia’s eyebrows shot up, and it was difficult to tell behind Luke’s beard, but Rey could’ve _sworn_ his mouth was twitching like he was hiding a smile. Rey, torn between irritation with Kylo and sympathy for him, gave Leia a beseeching look, hoping she would understand how sorry she was about the whole thing.

Leia reached over their half-eaten plates of food to pat Rey’s hand. “It’s not your fault, Rey. And it’s not your problem to fix.”

“I want to help.” Rey’s voice was firm, although she wouldn’t allow herself to examine _why_ she felt this pull too closely.

“Then I guess there’s nothing I can do at the moment but thank you.” Leia gave her a small smile. “My son is...difficult.”

Rey held back an incredulous laugh. That was putting it mildly. “So am I,” she said resolutely, trying to project more confidence than she felt.

* * *

Luke escorted her down to the lobby while Leia called Phasma to update her on the situation. In the elevator, he reached for his wallet and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills, pressing them into her hand. “For the cab,” was all he said.

Rey gaped down at them, trying to push them back into his hands. “Thank you, but—”

“Take the money, Rey.” Luke’s tone brooked no argument. “It might keep us all from ending up on the front page of the National Enquirer.”

It was the world-weary expression on Luke’s face more than his words that made her finally relent, tucking the money into her pocket. He had a lifetime of experience in these matters, while she had only a few days.

“I’ll find him,” she promised.

“Thank you,” Luke said gruffly, then paused, regarding her for a moment with concern in his eyes. “Just don’t lose yourself doing it.”

Rey frowned, about to ask him what he meant by that, but the elevator doors opened to the lobby before she could, and she was obliged to make a quick exit before someone spotted them together.

* * *

_Okay I’m alone, now cough it up._

Rey apologized to the cab driver for the delay and sat jiggling her knees with nervous energy while she waited for Kylo’s reply. When it came, it was just an address. Rey copied it into Google and—a cemetery? What on earth was Kylo doing at a cemetery? Biting back her curiosity, she gave the address to the driver, ignoring the odd look the woman gave her, and settled back in her seat for the ride, deciding to pass the time by searching the news for Kylo’s name.

Though it’d been barely an hour since the news had broken, there was already a startlingly large number of think pieces, with opinions ranging from people who thought Kylo should be suspended from competition until a full investigation could be conducted into his own steroid test results to people who thought Snoke was to blame for everything, that he’d kept Kylo in the dark and had leaked Anakin’s tests as revenge for his firing. Rey was trying to reserve her own opinion on the subject until she received an explanation from Kylo, but it was clear the Skywalker legacy was irreversibly tarnished in the collective public consciousness. Kylo had fans who would defend him to the grave, people willing to divorce his achievements from Anakin’s, but it seemed there were just as many eager to see him go down with his grandfather. Rey quickly decided scrolling through the comments at the bottom of the articles was a mistake—internet anonymity brought out the viciousness in people, and though the subject of their ire wasn’t her this time, she felt it almost as keenly as if it was.

“Fuck you,” she mumbled at a particularly awful one, switching off her phone and taking a deep, calming breath just in time to catch the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Sorry,” Rey offered sheepishly. “Just...talking to myself.”

“Who are you going to see?” the woman asked conversationally.

“What?” Rey blurted out, flustered.

The driver flicked her blinker on and eased into the next lane. “It’s a huge cemetery. Might want to check which grave you’re headed for on the map before you get there.”

“Oh.” Rey let out a breath. “Right.” She unlocked her phone again, pulling up the map on the cemetery website and searching for Anakin’s name and—yes, just as she’d suspected. Only Kylo Ren would be dramatic enough to go to his famous grandfather’s famous resting place when he was trying to hide from the paparazzi and the world in general. Rey made a small, exasperated noise in the back of her throat. He’d already punched one paparazzo for the day—was he _trying_ to get arrested?

* * *

Rey left the cab driver with the two-hundred dollars Luke had given her, hoping the woman hadn’t recognized her or at the very least that she wouldn’t publicly share where she’d picked her up from and driven her to. Popping her sunglasses back on and adjusting her cap, Rey climbed out of the back seat and into the morning sunshine. It wasn’t even 9 AM yet, so although the cemetery was the resting place of hundreds of actors and other famous public figures, it was blessedly deserted of people—living ones, anyway.

She spotted Kylo from a distance, a dark figure against the vast expanse of green-brown grass that was otherwise dotted only with grave markers and the occasional oak or cedar tree. The sight of him in dark jeans and a fitted black t-shirt was an unfamiliar one, as accustomed to seeing him in athletic gear as she was, but she’d recognize the breadth of those shoulders anywhere. He was standing in front of two fairly nondescript headstones—alone, Rey was relieved to see. So he _had_ managed to escape unwanted attention, though she couldn’t fathom how.

She approached him quietly, coming to a stop at his left side, leaving perhaps a foot of space between them. He didn’t startle or move a muscle, as if he’d sensed her arrival without looking. Rey tipped her head back so she could look up at him from under the brim of her cap. It was impossible to gauge his mood with his expressive eyes hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans. He could be crying, for all she could tell.

Deciding to stay silent and let him speak first—considering _he’d_ been the one who said he wanted to talk to someone—Rey directed her gaze to the headstone in front of them, the one Kylo seemed to be contemplating, and realized with a jolt of surprise it was not, in fact, Anakin Skywalker’s, but the headstone beside his.

_Padmé Amidala Naberrie_ , it read. _1943-1971. Beloved wife, mother, and public servant._

Rey ran her eyes over the dates again, somberly calculating the math. She’d been so young—younger than her grandson was now. Rey could conjure an image of Padmé into her mind easily—she’d been just as famous as her husband, after all, just for different reasons. A child prodigy, she’d graduated from Harvard at 19 and moved on to political activism then public office, first as a state senator and then as a U.S. Representative. And she’d been beautiful—strikingly beautiful—frozen in time, forever young in magazine articles and biographies and documentaries for the public to sigh over the senseless tragedy of a life cut short. As a child, Rey had always found old pictures of Padmé and Anakin to be breathtakingly lovely, like a perfect couple who’d walked straight out of a movie screen, like the JFK and Jackie O of the sports world.

Real life, it seemed, was considerably less beautiful.

“Do you know how she died?” Kylo’s voice was hoarse, either from disuse or overuse—it was difficult to say.

“Complications from childbirth,” Rey replied in a hushed voice. The constant noise of city traffic was muffled here—it felt like a world apart, no sounds but the odd bird and the rustle of palm fronds in the soft breeze high overhead.

“That was the official story,” Kylo said bitterly. “She was in a car accident with my grandfather. He was driving. And she was nine months pregnant. The doctors managed to save the babies, but she died of complications from the accident. His coach and PR team covered the whole thing up, paid off whoever they had to to keep it quiet. He was 23; he was in the prime of his swimming career. They couldn’t have a scandal ruining that. So they turned it into a senseless tragedy. Poor Anakin Skywalker, lost the love of his life. Innocent, grieving widower with two newborn babies.” Kylo rolled his shoulders, angling his face skyward. “Of course, then he gave them to the Organas to raise so he could focus on his career. Even a man like Palpatine couldn’t find a way to put a positive spin on that story.” Kylo gave a humorless chuckle.

“None of this is surprising to you,” he added, phrasing it more as a statement than a question, turning abruptly to look at Rey. His chin tipped down, and even with his sunglasses on Rey could tell his gaze was wandering below her eyeline, taking in her tank top and cutoffs, no doubt just as strange a sight to him as his clothing had been to her.

“Not really,” she admitted. “The whole giving his motherless children away to someone else to raise thing….” Rey paused, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Let’s just say that’s always struck a bit too close to home.”

Kylo gave a slow nod, accepting that. “They were better off away from him. Maybe he knew that.”

“Still.” Rey reached a hand up to resettle her cap on her head. “That doesn’t make an abandoned kid feel any better about being abandoned.”

Kylo turned away to study the headstone again. “I don’t think my mother’s ever forgiven him for it. She always refused to use his last name, and she never wanted to talk about him when I was growing up.”

“Must have been especially painful for her to have a son who hero-worshipped him, then.” The words tumbled out of Rey’s mouth before she could think better of them. Kylo shifted on his feet next to her but said nothing in defense of himself.

“I’ve been wondering lately,” he said at last, in a strained voice, “if there wasn’t more to the story. If he was drunk or high or—I don’t know. No one will ever know.”

Rey turned her gaze back to Padmé’s headstone, heart aching at the waste of it all. “Seems like the truth has a way of coming out,” she remarked, “even when you think it’s buried forever.” She could _feel_ him turn to look at her, but she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. She wasn’t going to demand an explanation from him—much as she wanted to. It needed to come from him, unprompted, and maybe she was irrational for thinking such a thing was possible from someone who kept any vulnerability locked up so deep inside.

Kylo was silent for so long that Rey began to shift on her feet, restless. She wasn’t suited for this job she’d taken upon herself—she didn’t have the patience for it. She was nearly as rash as Kylo was—more a spark to his kindling than water over it. She was supposed to be fixing things but she was probably just going to make them worse.

When Kylo finally broke his silence, it was so startling Rey’s heart lurched in her chest, though she managed to keep her body still. “I’ve loved swimming for as long as I can remember. My father—” Rey’s head jerked towards him in surprise, and to Kylo’s credit, he only faltered over the word momentarily. “He said I took to it like a fish. I still remember how my mom looked at me when I asked for lessons. So...resigned. Like she could see everything that was going to happen. I was four. I didn’t understand. All I saw was my grandfather’s and my uncle’s Olympic footage, and I wanted to be just like them. I _had_ to be just like them. I was born to it. I think—that became an addiction for me.”

Rey’s eyebrows drew together, empathy blooming in her chest. She couldn’t understand the weight of a family legacy, but that drive, that craving to be the best— _that_ she could understand, and how it was both the one thing that could make you a champion and the one thing that could destroy you if you let it.

“ _Is_ an addiction for me,” Kylo amended. “The world records, the medal records, the fame, the _love_. It’s like poison, but I can’t get enough of it.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Rey protested, and though the words were combative, her tone was gentle.

The corner of Kylo’s mouth twitched, but he still didn’t look at her. “Maybe not for you,” he said, voice rough with an edge of longing in it, almost like he was _jealous_.

But what did she know, really? Maybe if she had fifteen years of professional competition and twenty-eight Olympic medals and twenty-nine years of high expectations weighing on her, she’d have a leg to stand on. But in her current position as an upstart newcomer, offering him advice felt naive at best and sanctimonious at worst.

Kylo tipped his face heavenward again, throat bobbing as he swallowed, and Rey found herself staring, almost transfixed, at a mole on his neck, just to the right of his Adam’s apple. “My uncle only started coaching me because my mother asked him to. She thought that was a way to protect me. From myself. From other people, maybe.”

“People like Snoke?”

Kylo’s chest deflated with a sigh that functioned just as effectively as a _yes_ , reaching up to run a hand through his messy hair.

“What happened?” Rey whispered, like she was afraid to break the spell they were under, there in that silent graveyard, sun-drenched grass and peaceful quiet at odds with the storm of emotions brewing in the man standing next to her, pouring from him in a flood of words it seemed he’d been holding back for far, far too long.

“I met Snoke after I won my first national championship, when I was 15. He’d known my grandfather and my grandfather’s coach, and he was so helpful. So forthcoming. He gave me his email address and phone number and said I could contact him with any questions I had, any advice I needed, anything I wanted to know about Anakin. It was...a breath of fresh air to a teenager who worshipped his grandfather but couldn’t get anyone in his family to talk about him. And my relationship with my uncle was...contentious.” Kylo paused, then added wryly, “But I’ve already told you about that.”

“I barely ever saw my parents by that point. I wasn’t living at home anymore; my uncle and I lived near my training center and I had no time for anything outside of swimming and squeezing in schooling with a private tutor so I could get my high school diploma. Went to London when I was 17, won 7 gold medals, and my life was never the same again. Got accepted to Stanford, and the cycle started all over again, except I saw my parents even more infrequently. Skywalker and I made each other miserable for the next four years. The only reason he stuck around was because he felt he owed it to my mother, and the only reason I stuck around was because I thought he was my best chance to break Anakin’s medal record. And all the while I kept in contact with Snoke, confiding in him, venting to him.” Kylo gave a bitter laugh. “My uncle was fighting every decision I made, my mother asked me to quit swimming every time she spoke to me, and my dad—he couldn’t even be bothered to have an opinion on the subject. I felt like Snoke was my only friend, the only person who was truly on my side.”

Tears pricked at Rey’s eyes, and she blinked rapidly to banish them away. That was precisely who Finn had become to her, after years of desperate loneliness. What if that friendship and belonging had come wrapped not in a beautiful Finn-shaped package but in an insidious, Snoke-like one? With startling clarity, she suddenly realized perhaps her path and Kylo’s had not been so different once upon a time, and where they diverged was not simply the result of some moral failing on his part.

People were so much more complicated than that.

“Rio was really the beginning of the end for my uncle and I. But we stuck it out until after I graduated, like the stubborn bastards we are. By then Snoke was offering to be my coach. And honestly...it sounded like a dream come true compared to the hell Skywalker and I were putting each other through. So I hired him instead. And it was great—for a while.”

Rey stayed perfectly still, trying not to even breathe too loudly in case Kylo stopped talking. He was still staring off into the middle distance, fingers twitching into clenched fists in reaction to whatever trail of thought he was following.

“Then he showed me the secret he’d been keeping for this very purpose, for _years_ . I didn’t believe it at first. I couldn’t. That _Anakin Skywalker’s_ entire career was built on a _lie_.” Kylo choked over the word. “It felt—it felt like my whole life was a lie too. I couldn’t—I didn’t know who I was without this. But it was irrefutable—he showed me video footage, medical records, test results, real and falsified ones. He said Palpatine had kept them secretly as leverage against my grandfather, leverage it turned out he never needed, and Snoke wound up with all of it. And he told me he’d leak it all if I ever broke my contract with him.”

“That’s _blackmail_!” Rey burst out angrily.

Kylo gave another breathy, humorless laugh. “Yes. Yes it was. And I went along with it.”

“That’s why you walked out of the press conference,” Rey said, feeling a bit foolish that it’d taken her this long to put two-and-two together. “You beat his real record _years_ ago.”  

A muscle jumped in Kylo’s jaw, forehead furrowing above his sunglasses, and finally he turned to look down at her. “You think that’s why?” he demanded, sounding deeply offended.

“What?” Rey blinked, startled, suddenly glad he couldn’t see much of her face behind her dark sunglasses, but her surprise morphed quickly into defensiveness. “Well—isn’t it?” she threw back at him, drawing herself up to her full height, which was still regretfully somewhere below his chin.

“I walked out of the press conference because the guilt of keeping this secret’s been _eating me up inside_ . I walked out because I couldn’t sit there _smiling_ while everyone around me perpetuated a grand fraud for _another minute_.”

“In this new spirit of honesty you’re embracing,” Rey rejoined, “why don’t you start being honest with yourself?”

“With my—” Kylo gaped at her, reaching up to tug an agitated hand through his hair, glancing around at nothing in particular like some support for his outrage might appear out of thin air. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you _think_ it means. Don’t pretend it wasn’t partly about you too, about your _pride_.”

Kylo made a strangled, indignant noise of protest, but before he could manage any coherent words Rey forged ahead. “How can you pretend it wasn’t when _you’ve_ been helping to perpetuate that fraud all these years? And wasn’t that what you wanted? Your singular goal in life was to beat Anakin’s medal record. What did you _think_ was going to happen? You were _always_ going to have to sit there in a press room listening as people compared you to him, _knowing_ he wasn’t who they think he was. Just because your guilt surfaced when you were finally in that room, doesn’t mean your pride wasn’t wounded too. The injustice of it all, right? All those people singing his praises while you lied for him, all the while working harder than him and accomplishing more than him, on your own merit. You _felt_ that, don’t pretend you didn’t.”

Rey was breathing hard once she ran out of words to say, eyeing Kylo up and down. By comparison, he stood very, very still, and it was impossible to gauge his reaction. After a few long seconds, he stepped towards her, and Rey had to summon all of her self-control to keep from taking a step back in response. He was just so _huge_ , so physically intimidating despite the fact that he’d just spent the last few minutes baring his soul to her. He took another step, and now he was so close Rey had to tilt her head back so she could see him from under the brim of her cap, still stubbornly standing her ground. Kylo’s hands moved up towards her face, and Rey couldn’t _breathe_ , didn’t know what he was going to do—and his fingers closed gently around the sides of her sunglasses, running back along the curved edge as he carefully disentangled them from her ears and pulled them off her face.

“There it is,” he breathed. “That fire in your eyes.”

Rey’s throat was dry, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say, and Kylo wasn’t moving, just staring at her, and it wasn’t _fair_ because he still had _his_ sunglasses on. Rey found her gaze faltering, skittering downwards and landing on his mouth—which was a different sort of danger entirely.

“Why—” Rey started to say, the word coming out as a squeak. She took a deep breath to steady herself, eyes still on his mouth, trying very hard not to think about where _he_ might be looking. “Why do you like it when I’m angry at you?”

His lips parted, and Rey caught a glimpse of his _tongue_ and suddenly felt so lightheaded she had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment. “I like it when you’re honest with me,” he said in a low voice.

Rey let out a shaky breath at that, but by the time she opened her eyes he’d stepped back, still holding her sunglasses hostage in one hand.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “And I’m right. It’s both those things at once, and more than that. The idea that I allowed Snoke to manipulate me, that I fooled myself into thinking the course of action I took was the best one. That I sacrificed my entire life….” He took a deep breath in, voice jagged and unsteady when he continued. “That I hurt my mother over and over again, to protect a lie. To protect myself by extension. My medals, my records—those are real, but they’re tainted now. It’s all wrapped up together, and I can’t help feeling it wasn’t _worth_ it.”

Rey stayed quiet, just watching him. His nostrils flared, chest rising and falling in uneven breaths, but she didn’t realize he was _crying_ until a tear slipped from behind his sunglasses, running down his cheek and clinging to the edge of his jaw.

“What made you do it?” Rey whispered. “Why did you fire him now, after all this time?”

Kylo sniffed softly, putting up a mighty effort to keep his voice steady, but he wasn’t fooling Rey for a minute. “Six years of waiting for the ax to fall. It’s been...exhausting. But I didn’t have the motivation to do anything about it until I reconciled with my mother a few months ago. Even after that I kept putting it off, waiting for the right moment.” He chuckled bleakly. “As if there could be a right moment. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, though. Instead she found out like this. I should have told her.” His voice trailed off for a moment, wistful, regretful. “But I knew I had to do it. I was...suffocating. It’s been getting worse and worse with every medal I’ve won here. The press conference was the last straw, and you—”

Rey’s breath caught in her chest.

“—when you told me I was miserable last night. I was. I _am_ . But it felt like a weight had been lifted, and I could _do_ something about it.” He glanced down at her sunglasses, dwarfed by his hand, folding them up and refusing to look at her. “Did you mean it?” he murmured, a catch in his low voice.

Rey swallowed hard. “Mean what?” The words came out all breathy.

“That you felt like—” Kylo’s throat bobbed. “Like you were watching Ben Solo.”

“Every word,” Rey said, with conviction.

“I don’t know if—” His voice caught again, another tear slipping down his cheek. “I don’t know if I can go back to being that person.”

There was so much _pain_ in his voice, so much yearning, so much resignation. Rey’s heart squeezed in her chest, and she stepped closer to him before she could think too much about it, impulsively reaching for his hand with her own. For half a heartbeat, his fist stayed clenched, then it relaxed at the brush of her fingers, and she slipped them against his palm. His skin was warm against hers, the feeling igniting up her arm like a live wire but she determinedly ignored it. This was about comfort. _You’re not alone_ , she was trying to say. _You don’t have to do this alone._

And—obstinate and thickheaded as he could be—he seemed to get the message. He glanced down at their clasped hands, dark hair falling forward, strands of it clinging to his damp cheek, and he twisted his hand around hers, entwining their fingers as easily as if they’d done this a thousand times.

“Maybe you don’t have to,” Rey said softly. “Maybe you can be a new person. The real you, the one who’s free of all this.”

“ _Free_ ,” Kylo repeated, sighing around the word, so soft it was more his lips forming the silent shape of it, still clinging to Rey’s hand like it was a lifeline.

They stood there in silence for a while, side by side, hand in hand. Kylo was looking at his grandparents’ headstones again, falling back into his own thoughts. Rey decided to give him a minute before she by necessity had to bring him back to reality. She squeezed her eyes shut, tilting her head back and attempting to quiet her mind, just for a moment. The sun was warm on her bare shoulders, an occasional gentle breeze kicking up strands of hair that tickled her nose, and every time she shifted the tiniest bit on her feet, her forearm bumped into his, the sensation sending goosebumps up her skin—a ridiculous reaction on her body’s part, considering their hands were still clasped together. She was _holding hands_ with Kylo Ren like it was the most natural thing on earth, and this was just one more thing to add to the long list of things that she couldn’t even _begin_ to process until she had some time alone to think. But she didn’t _want_ to find time to think, because thinking would require she also come to terms with something far more terrifying to her—Rey snapped her eyes open. She was _not_ going to analyze how holding Kylo’s hand was making her _feel_ , not now when she was _still holding it_ and he had tears fresh on his cheeks from what was probably the worst day of his entire life.

Rey sighed, breaking the silence reluctantly. “Phasma has interviews lined up for you today.”

Kylo’s fingers twitched against hers. “I’m not doing them.”

Rey angled her head back to look up at him. “I don’t think you have a choice. It’s the middle of the Olympics. You can’t just disappear.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I can disappear for today,” he insisted. “The relay coaches took me out of the medley heats this afternoon. They can qualify for the final without me and they don’t want me competing until the IOC issues a statement about all this.”

Rey blinked up at him, incredulous. “You just did one of the bravest things you’ve ever done and you’re scared to face a couple of interviews?”

Kylo turned to look down at her. “To face _the world,”_ he corrected, and he sounded so damn _mournful_ , like he was attending his own funeral. “Everyone’s going to despise me now.”

Rey shook her head. “You can’t let _Snoke_ have the last word. If you won’t do the interviews for yourself, do them for your mother. For your family. Explain what happened.”

Kylo frowned. “Phasma’s not going to let me tell the truth. She’ll want me to insist I didn’t know.”

“Fuck what _Phasma_ says. You want everyone’s trust back? Tell them _the truth_.”

Kylo hesitated.

“I’ll go with you,” Rey said firmly, startling even herself with her sudden confidence, and Kylo’s lips parted like he was about to question what made her think her presence would in any way influence his decision, but then his fingers tightened around hers, because it really was too late to pretend otherwise, and Rey _grinned_ up at him. There was a sudden giddy, reckless, _alive_ feeling sparking all through her, prompted by some heady mix of Kylo’s newfound freedom, his trepidation and his courage, and the way he still seemed nowhere close to willing to let go of her hand.

“And I’m going to do something else,” Rey declared.

One corner of Kylo’s mouth curled up indulgently. “What’s that?”

“I’m going to fire Unkar Plutt.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo's sunglasses and hair are brought to you by [Cannes 2016](http://hardyness.tumblr.com/post/144705380847/adam-driver-looking-very-dapper) and his outfit is brought to you by [Saturday Night Live](http://beneffleck.tumblr.com/post/137465752511/adam-driver-closing-snl-1162016) lol
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is Discoloration by Dawn Golden, Take Me Away by Brooke Candy/Bleachers, and Let Go by Killboy. You can listen to the soundtrack for the entire fic [here on spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/greysecondchances/playlist/2Q6nvF3a6iRQgASKDU8CaH) which I highly encourage doing because it's pretty integral to the themes/establishing the general feel for the world of the fic. IF YOU'RE INTO THAT SORT OF THING. (and yeah, it is for the WHOLE FIC, even the parts that aren't written yet, so like, maybe you can pick up a few hints for where it's going while you're at it.)
> 
> I have to focus on writing my reylo anthology fic for the next few weeks (it's my FIRST canonverse fic, which is terrrrrrifying), and then I'm going on vacation, so it's going to be a while before the next chapter is posted. Please be patient with me, dear readers, and in the meantime, share your thoughts with me please! I love to hear them all <3


	6. The Truth

“You’re going to fire—” Kylo repeated slowly, as if Rey had just declared something incredibly obvious. “After the Games.” He stated this like a fact, a repetition of what Rey had told him days earlier, but there was a furrow forming between his eyebrows, above the bridge of his sunglasses, like he was catching the thread of implication behind her words.

“No.” Rey was still smiling up at him. “Now. Today.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

Her smile morphed instantly into a frown. “No, I’m dead serious.”

“Rey, you can’t do that.”

And maybe it was the hint of condescension in his tone, how he phrased it more as a declaration than a plea, as if her idea was ridiculous, or maybe it was just being told that she couldn’t do something she’d finally worked up the courage to go through with after  _ years  _ of waiting for this opportunity. Whatever it was, it flared the embers of her temper into full flames and she yanked her hand out of his.

“Why not?” she challenged, crossing her arms over her chest. “ _ You _ did it.”

His eyes were still hidden behind his sunglasses, so Rey had to look elsewhere to gauge his reaction—down to his hand, his fingers flexing in a delayed response to her own being pulled away, up to the lower half of his face, where a muscle jumped in his jaw. “That’s different,” he said, and his voice sounded odd, colored by some strange mix of emotions—restrained anger?—a hint of fear—but Rey chose to focus on the arrogance.

Her mouth opened, ready to give him an outraged dressing-down for his frankly offensive double standards, but he wasn’t done. “Our careers are in two completely different places. I’m almost at the end of mine.” He choked out a small, bitter laugh. “Maybe it’s already over. But you—” He cut himself off, pressing his lips together in an oddly mesmerizing way that had Rey momentarily forgetting how upset she was at him for ruining her brief bit of joy. “Yours is just beginning. Don’t kill it by being impulsive. Don’t—” The fingers of the hand she’d been holding curled into a fist. “Don’t be like me,” he muttered, looking down.

Rey blinked, taken aback by the unexpected course his argument was taking. Her mouth opened and closed, lost for words, trying to keep a grasp on her anger even as it slipped away like a wisp of smoke in the wind. “I’m not—” she began, then clamped her mouth shut again. They both knew that was a lie. “I want to be free,” she said instead, hating how soft and desperate she sounded.  _ Like you are now _ , she didn’t say, because there was  _ a line _ she refused to cross, and that line was betraying any hint of envy—whether to spare her own pride or in consideration of Kylo’s anguish over his own situation, she couldn’t say.

Everything about him seemed to soften then, the tension going out of every line of his body. “Rey,” he said, her name so gentle on his lips, like she was a wild animal he was trying to soothe.

Rey kept her gaze stubbornly averted from his face, landing instead on her sunglasses still captive in his right hand. “Give me my sunglasses back.” She held out her hand for them, and she was  _ not  _ deflecting, it was just— _ really _ bright outside.

He made no move to comply— _ shocker _ . Instead, his shoulders seemed to hunch, and Rey finally dragged her eyes up to squint at him, both to sell her story and to see what he was doing. He’d dipped his chin down, his entire huge body trying to follow it in an attempt to see her eyes under the brim of her cap. He straightened as she raised her head though, instinctively, as if their movements were synced up by some invisible string.

“Rey,” he said again, and this time it sounded placating. “Just wait until next week. Just a few more days.”

She hated that he’d suddenly decided to become the rational, reasonable one—but only when it came to  _ her  _ life _.  _ The hypocrisy was  _ beyond  _ irritating—almost as irritating as the fact that she knew he was right. “Why?” she shot back, raising her eyebrows. A challenge.

Kylo sighed with his entire body, a slow, quiet release of what must have been all the air in his large-capacity swimmer’s lungs. “Are we really doing this? You know I’m right.”

Rey remained silent, expectant, withdrawing her empty hand to cross her arms over her chest again.

Kylo huffed out a laugh, tipping his head back. “Of course we are,” he said, almost to himself. Rey’s eyes moved from the ends of his soft dark hair brushing his shoulders to the line of his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “All right then.” He looked down at her again, bringing his free hand up in the same moment, whipping his own sunglasses off before Rey realized what he was doing, and she nearly stepped back, caught off guard by the intensity of his eyes, which she wasn’t used to looking at in such...close range. The sunlight turned them a lighter shade of brown than usual, and there were bruise-dark circles under them, like he hadn’t slept at all the night before, but if anything his sleep deprivation just made him look  _ more _ fervid. She shifted on her feet, but stood her ground, feeling like that was very important for some reason she couldn’t quite remember at the moment.

“Endorsements,” he said flatly, his tone belying the intensity in his eyes. “Simple as that. You’re— _ beyond  _ talented, you’re a star on the rise, and  _ everyone _ is going to want to attach themselves to that. But they want to see stability. Corporations won’t want to take a gamble on someone who seems like a wild card, and if you fire your coach in the middle of competition—and not just any competition, the fucking  _ Olympics _ —that’s exactly what you’re going to look like.”

Rey snorted. “That’s rich, coming from  _ you _ .”

Kylo appeared completely unperturbed by her disparaging tone. “That’s fair.”

Rey’s mouth dropped open. “Come again?”

One corner of Kylo’s mouth curled upwards, apparently pleased that he’d managed to surprise her. “I’m well aware of my reputation, Rey.” There was a hint of wry amusement in his voice, but he sobered quickly. “But I was referring to stability in your professional life. When I signed most my endorsement contracts, I’d had the same coach for over a decade. I’d won multiple national championships, was fresh off winning half a dozen Olympic medals, but just as important, I reliably finished at least top three in every race I competed in. And I made it clear my future was completely swimming-focused, despite what else I might have had going on in my life. That’s how I wound up with some five-year contracts right off the bat even though I was only seventeen.”

He recited this list in a matter-of-fact, almost detached manner, with no trace of his usual arrogance, as though he was talking about someone else, but Rey bristled all the same. “So—what? I haven’t won as many national championships as you when you were seventeen, so no one’s going to want to sign me? I won this year, and I have  _ five  _ Olympic medals, and I broke three world records in the last  _ week _ —”

“Rey,” Kylo cut in softly, and his mouth was doing that funny thing again, like he was trying not to smile, and Rey scowled at him. “I know all that. You don’t have to sell your credentials to me. That’s not what I was getting at anyway—you  _ have  _ all those things I had, except one.”

“What’s that?” Rey said acerbically.

“My family legacy.”

Again, he didn’t sound arrogant; he sounded more resigned than anything, but Rey reared her head back like she’d been slapped all the same. “Are you  _ trying  _ to piss me off?”

Kylo stared down at her, unblinking. “I believe I accomplish that regularly without even trying.” His voice was so low and flat Rey couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

She shifted on her feet, eyeing him warily, waiting to see where he was going with all this, because it seemed like it was going  _ somewhere  _ even if he was being very insulting along the way.

Kylo sighed. “What I’m trying to say—very badly, apparently—is that I had all those things on my own merit  _ and  _ the family legacy on top of that. It’s unfair but you know damn well they took that into account. And despite what other... _ PR disasters _ ,” he said the words wryly, like he was quoting someone, “I’ve created, I’ve never fired a coach in the middle of competition until now. Not even my uncle, when we were about two seconds away from killing each other at any given moment.”

Rey’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you really comparing Luke Skywalker to  _ Unkar Plutt _ ?” Her coach’s name came out colored by all the years of pent-up, helpless anger and disgust she felt towards him, and now it was Kylo’s turn to flinch, swaying back on his feet like she’d dealt him a physical blow.

“You know that’s not what I meant.” And maybe it was the gentle way he said it, or maybe it was the way he was looking at her, like he could see straight into her heart, and more than that, that he  _ understood _ it—or maybe it was just that she’d finally reached her breaking point, but her eyes welled up with tears and a small sob slipped out before she could stop it.

Mortified, she turned her head away, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand, biting her lip to stifle any further noises that threatened to spill out of her mouth. Kylo’s entire life was falling apart and here she was crying about  _ herself _ . She was supposed to help him, she’d  _ volunteered  _ to help him and— “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not—”

Before she had time to process what was happening, Kylo had stepped closer and awkwardly enfolded her in his arms, pair of sunglasses in each hand and all. The shock of this unexpected embrace kept her body tense for a moment, but then his arms tightened around her, in a delayed way that gave her the feeling this was not a man accustomed to hugging—and she let herself melt against him, burying her face in the broad, solid planes of his chest. The motion dislodged her cap and sent it tumbling to the ground, but Rey couldn’t bring herself to care. The hand she’d been using to wipe her eyes was trapped next to her face, and it was sheer physical instinct that had her pressing her palm flat to his chest, fingers twisting in the soft, warm material of his t-shirt—warmed by his own skin or the early-morning sun heating the black fabric, she couldn’t say. His chin was a comforting weight on the top of her head, and he smelled like laundry detergent and sunshine, and she allowed herself several small, muffled sniffles.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” she mumbled into his chest when she finally trusted herself to speak. “I’ve put up with him this long, why can’t I just make it a few more days.” She didn’t even understand it herself—all she knew was that freedom from Unkar’s constant bullying, his relentless criticism, his callous indifference towards everything about her as a person that  _ wasn’t  _ winning races, his whispered threats in back hallways—it was so close she could  _ taste _ it, and not having it even as the best moments of her life were unfolding was making each of those  _ few more days  _ feel like a life prison sentence.

“It makes sense to me.” Kylo’s voice was a soft rumble that she felt as well as heard, reverberating in his chest beneath her ear, and for some reason the sound was so soothing Rey allowed herself to press her cheek just a bit closer to his chest, almost  _ nuzzling _ it—and she knew she’d probably be embarrassed about all this later but at the moment she couldn’t bring herself to care beyond how nice if felt to be both held and  _ understood _ . Even if the form both those things took was this unsettlingly beautiful,  _ infuriating _ man.

They stood like that for a moment in silence, and it felt to Rey like there was something intangible flowing between them in the places they were physically touching—comfort, empathy, but other things too—resolve, maybe—or courage.

“I have an idea,” Kylo said quietly, and Rey pulled back so she could see his face again. His arms dropped from around her, and he looked down, holding her folded-up sunglasses out in his open hand like a peace offering. Rey took them, but made no move to put them back on.

“What kind of idea?” She couldn’t keep the curiosity out of her voice.

“I might be able to bump up the timeline for when certain companies offer you deals. Usually they’d wait until the Games are over, or at least until you’re finished with competition, before they start contacting you, but if they felt a sense of urgency—”

“How are you going to make them feel a sense of urgency?” Rey asked, suddenly dubious.

Kylo didn’t seem to hear her. There was a spark of excitement in his dark eyes, and he seemed fixated on whatever plans were forming in his head. “What do you have right now—four golds and a silver? That’s well over $150,000 right there, and you’re basically a shoo-in for gold in the relay tomorrow. Wheaties and Visa will sign you for sure, but that’s more for visibility than anything. They’ll only pay in the low five-digits. How much do you need to feel safe firing Plutt?”

Rey shifted uncomfortably. It felt strange, and wrong somehow, to be talking about money so coldly and calculatingly, in such specific amounts. Unkar did that regularly, and she was trying to be free of him, not be  _ like _ him. But to be free of him, she had to speak his language, and the only way to do that was with money.

She sighed, bringing a hand up to rub her forehead. “I don’t know. A couple hundred thousand? And then there’s also—if I take endorsements, I have to give up my swimming scholarship. So they’d have to more than cover my tuition for the next three or four years, and living expenses—”

“How much is tuition at USC these days?”

Rey snorted. “Fucking... _ astronomical _ . Including my rent and everything, probably like…$75,000 a year.”

Kylo didn’t even blink. “So it needs to more than cover that plus whatever you have to give Plutt to make him go away.”

“And whatever I pay Luke.”

Kylo’s eyebrows twitched into a frown. “I thought you said he offered to coach you pro bono.”

Rey’s cheeks reddened. “Yes, he  _ offered _ . I said I’d think about that part.”

“Rey.” Kylo tilted his head, looking at her like he knew  _ exactly  _ what was getting in the way of her accepting Luke’s offer, because it was the thing that was always getting in his way too, and Rey  _ hated  _ that he knew her so well without really knowing her at all—

“This is not a debate,” she said crossly.

Kylo’s eyes ran over her face, down to the imperious tilt of her chin, and he appeared to concede this one, for now. “Okay. So we’re looking at about half a million. That’s doable.” It took some effort for Rey not to gape at him as he discussed huge sums of money in a tone of voice as casual as if he was remarking on the weather. “We just have to call in the big guns.”

“The big—” Rey bit the sentence off in surprise when he suddenly lurched forward, reaching down for something on the ground behind her, his face passing so close to her hip she started away self-consciously. When he straightened, she realized he’d picked up her cap, and was brushing bits of dry grass off it, and it looked...absolutely  _ miniature  _ in his hands, and no one’s hands should be  _ that big _ —even though they looked perfectly proportionate to the rest of his body. It was only when he held normal-sized things in them that his true dimensions came into sharp relief and—Rey was flushed again by the time he held her cap out. She accepted it, shoving it back on her head and trying to look—anywhere but at him.

“Who are the big guns?” Rey tried again, her eyes landing on Anakin’s grave marker, which was a much safer place to look than at his grandson, while she willed the redness from her cheeks.

“We’ll see,” Kylo said, a hint of amusement in his voice, and Rey’s eyes shot back to him despite herself. He was holding his phone in his hand, waiting for it to power on.

Rey’s eyes narrowed, determined to get an answer this time. “How are you going to  _ bump up the timeline _ ?”

Kylo looked up from his phone screen, regarding her silently for a moment. “Do you trust me?” he asked at last, his tone soft and low and laced with  _ something  _ that made the question feel more suggestive than it had a right to.

Rey shifted on her feet, annoyed with herself for reacting to him like this, annoyed with  _ him  _ for being so... _ distracting _ . “I’d trust you more if you stopped answering questions with questions.”

Kylo’s lips twitched. “Rey. I’m trying to help you.” Then, so earnestly it almost sounded like a plea, “Let me handle this.”

Rey swallowed hard, crossing her arms over her chest again, drumming the fingers of one hand against her bicep, trying to keep the indecision off her face as her pride warred with her common sense. “Let’s make a deal.”

“A deal?” One of Kylo’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yes. A deal.” Rey covered the spontaneous, still-forming nature of this deal with the cool, solid confidence in her tone. “I’ll let you do this for me, and I’ll wait to fire Unkar until you think it’s a good idea, as long as you do those interviews today, and you do them how  _ you  _ want to do them, not how Phasma wants you to do them.”

Kylo’s eyes widened, just a little, and it made him look so _boyish_ , lost and a little afraid, so incongruous with the confident man so smoothly assuring her he’d handle all her money troubles just moments before.

“ _ And _ ,” Rey forged ahead, “you’ll let your mother meet you there.” 

Kylo’s throat bobbed. “You’re ruthless,” he said, voice deep and rough. But there was a spark of something in his eyes—something that looked suspiciously like admiration.

“Just for support,” Rey rushed to clarify. “She just wants to be there for you. Obviously...you have a lot to talk about later. In private.”

They stared at each other for a moment, as if daring the other to back down. It was ridiculous, really, both of them so eager to help the other, so sure they knew what was best for them, and so reluctant to accept help for themselves. Rey found herself inching closer without even realizing she was doing it, drawn inexorably towards him, tipping her chin up to maintain eye contact. Kylo remained perfectly still, looking down at her, not even blinking.

“Well?” Rey prompted in a whisper. They were so close she could see the stubble on his chin and above his lip from where he hadn’t shaved that morning.

His chest rose and fell, his expelled breath ruffling gently across her cheek. “Get us a cab, and tell my mother to meet us at the media center. I have a call to make.”

Rey allowed herself a small smile of triumph before fishing her phone out of her back pocket to find a nearby Lyft driver.

It became abundantly clear who Kylo was calling when the line picked up on the other end and his publicist’s demanding, strident tones filtered loud and clear out of the speaker. Kylo grimaced and pulled his phone away from his ear, turning the volume down, to little avail. Phasma dispensed with pleasantries, launching directly into scolding him for everything from firing Snoke without telling her to failing to return her dozens of calls that morning. Kylo was curiously docile while she berated him, apparently deciding it was a good idea not to antagonize her at the moment.

Rey tried her level best not to eavesdrop as she pulled up Leia’s contact information and composed a text catching her up on the situation as succinctly as possible, but once she sent the text and no longer had that to distract her, it was impossible not to hear every word of the exchange.

Kylo was smoothly reassuring Phasma that he had a meeting scheduled with representatives from the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the national board of USA Swimming that morning, and that he’d be ready to do any interviews she had lined up for him afterwards. Phasma quieted a bit at this, and it was difficult for Rey to tell if she was placated or suspicious—but she didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“I need you to do something for me in the meantime,” Kylo was saying, and Rey had never heard him sound so diplomatic.

Apparently Phasma hadn’t either. “I’m currently busy doing many things for you, Kylo, all of which involve salvaging your career.”

Kylo huffed out an impatient breath, but seemed to remember himself, pressing his lips together for a moment. “And I’m grateful for every one,” he said at last, in a restrained voice. “But this is a priority.”

“Oh, this’ll be good.” Rey could almost  _ hear _ Phasma’s eyes rolling. “Fine, what is it?”

“I need you to call one of your contacts at Nike, and imply  _ very strongly  _ that Speedo is going with an accelerated timeline for signing Rey Niima. And then I need you to call Speedo, and do the same.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and it seemed that Kylo had finally found something that was capable of striking his incorrigible publicist speechless.

Rey shifted uncomfortably on her feet. She wanted those endorsements, desperately, but she didn’t want them  _ dishonestly _ . She was about to open her mouth to tell Kylo just that, but Phasma spoke before she could.

“That is a ridiculous request. You know very well they both already want to sign her and will probably get in a bidding war over her. Why you’re even concerning yourself with Rey Niima at a time like this is—”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Kylo cut her off peevishly. “But I need you to inject a sense of urgency.”

“Why?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Phasma made an incoherent sound of outrage. “I am your  _ publicist _ , not your fucking agent. Make Armitage do it.”

“I fired him.” Kylo’s tone was nonchalant, and this information left Phasma spluttering again.

“You  _ what _ ?”

“That should hardly come as a surprise. Hux has no loyalty to me; you know he’s in Snoke’s pocket. So whose side are you going to land on, Phasma? Which of us is the better gamble?” 

The question was brutal, unflinching, and Phasma didn’t bother pretending that Kylo was anything other than a business investment for her. Rey’s heart twinged in her chest at this, yet another reminder that the people Kylo had allowed closest to him in recent years didn’t care about him beyond his brand, and the money that came along with it if they attached themselves to him.

“Much as I’m currently regretting it,” Phasma said drily. “I’ve already thrown in my lot with you.”

“So are you going to do what I say, like I pay you to do? Or do I need to fire you too?”

Phasma was silent again for several seconds. “I have contacts, but I’ll need a day or two if you want me to drop it casually into conversation.”

“Today,” Kylo said resolutely.

“ _ Tomorrow _ . If you want this to work.”

Kylo’s gaze shifted to Rey for the first time during the duration of the phone call, and everything about him seemed to soften for a moment. There was a question in his eyes, like he was asking her permission, and Rey couldn’t sort through her mixed feelings quickly enough to settle on a response. All she knew was that, however much he was trying to act like he was the one with all the power, he was putting one of his last professional relationships on the line to help her. So she gave him a tiny nod, a hesitant, barely there smile.

It was enough.

“Fine,” he bit into the phone. “I’ll see you at the studio.”

Kylo’s chest was heaving when he hung up, as noticeably as if he’d just climbed out of the pool after a race, and he clenched his phone so tightly in his fist Rey thought it might snap in half. She drew nearer to him slowly, holding out a hand until her fingers rested, feather-soft, on his bicep. Kylo’s gaze darted down to her hand against his bare skin, his dark hair falling in his eyes and hiding them from her.

“Thank you,” Rey said simply, earnestly, and his gaze snapped to hers, surprised, like he’d thought she was going to be angry at him, and he held her eyes, searching for something. 

A fluttering, swooping sensation ran through Rey’s stomach, and she was about to step even closer when her phone chimed in her pocket. She cleared her throat, breaking his gaze to retrieve it. “Our Lyft’s here,” she informed him quietly.

Kylo nodded, something that looked like disappointment coloring his expression. He straightened, putting his sunglasses back on, and Rey swallowed her own disappointment at having those unnervingly expressive eyes hidden from her once again by settling her own sunglasses back on the bridge of her nose. They were leaving the solitude of the graveyard, venturing back into the world, and the reprieve it had offered them for a while was already taking on an air of surreality in her mind.

They began their walk to the front entrance in companionable silence, close enough that their arms brushed inadvertently a couple of times, and Rey tried not to think about why that sent goosebumps up her arms when it was already 90 degrees outside and the sun was blazing down on them with all the cloudless intensity of an August morning in LA.

The front gate had just come into view when Kylo stopped abruptly, angling his body towards her. “ _ Fuck _ ,” he breathed, the word so soft and low it hardly sounded like an obscenity coming out of his mouth.

“What?” Rey went up on her tiptoes to get a peek over his shoulder, but he moved with her, clearly trying to block something from her sight.

“There’s a photographer behind that tree.” Kylo jerked his chin briefly towards his shoulder, indicating a cluster of cedar trees somewhere behind him, and Rey settled flat on her feet again, realizing with an odd rush of warmth that she’d been mistaken—he was trying to block  _ her  _ from  _ their _ sight.

“You know,” Rey remarked, failing to keep the hint of amusement out of her voice, “if you didn’t want to get papped maybe you shouldn’t have visited your grandparents’ gravesite today of all days.”

Kylo frowned, seemingly in no mood at the moment to examine his own questionable decision-making. “With any luck, it’s just the one,” he muttered darkly. “Let’s go.” He placed a hand on her lower back, urging her forward, one of his fingers brushing against the small strip of skin where her tank top didn’t quite meet the top of her shorts, but he didn’t seem to notice. He kept his body at an angle as they resumed walking, as though still trying to shield her from view as best he could, so Rey kept her head down, the brim of her cap hiding her face, and hoped her disguise was more effective than his.

But they’d barely taken one step outside the gate before they were accosted by at least half a dozen more photographers who must have caught wind of their location and been hovering patiently outside the cemetery entrance, waiting for them to leave. Kylo made a valiant effort to block her with his body again, but there were too many of them, and only one of him. Rey instinctively leaned into the safe haven of Kylo’s body, too flustered by the sudden chaos to question the wisdom of that move. Kylo’s pace didn’t falter, and though the paparazzi clustered around them like a flock of noisy seagulls, he was able to cut a clear path through them by some combination of his huge body, his confident stride towards the street, and the bit of panic Rey glimpsed in the photographers’ eyes as they all but leapt out of his way to avoid a collision, probably all too familiar with the business end of his fist.

Still, their profession demanded incorrigibility, and they doggedly kept pace with Rey and Kylo, giving them a narrow berth but rushing ahead to snap more front-facing pictures of the two of them. Rey tried to keep her head down to make getting a good picture as challenging for them as possible, but it became more difficult as her initial shock wore off and the jumble of words they were all shouting began registering in her mind as separate, coherent sentences. A lot of it was simply Kylo’s name, or hers, but when neither of them responded to multiple questions of whether or not the two of them were dating, a man just to Rey’s right shouted, “Are you fucking?”

Rey’s head snapped up and she stared at him, this stranger who thought it was perfectly within his right to demand answers to personal questions while invading her privacy and taking unauthorized pictures of her. Undaunted, he lifted his camera and, grinning smugly, took a flurry of photos, now that the brim of her cap wasn’t blocking her face from view. Rey scowled, just as much at her own stupidity and inexperience as at him, and angled her face away, back towards Kylo, who was fielding his own flood of questions from the other side, everything from how much he’d known about Anakin to why he’d fired Snoke to if he was now banned from swimming. Rey sneaked a glance up at his face, which he was keeping unusually passive, with some effort, if the intermittent muscle tic in his clenched jaw was anything to go by—until one question, the substance of which Rey didn’t catch anything but the sound of her name. At that, Kylo suddenly let out a noise that could only be called a growl, swerving away from Rey, his clenched fist swinging upwards.

Rey reacted on sheer instinct, both of her hands flying up to catch his arm, digging her heels in with all her strength to halt his forward momentum. The last thing he needed right now was an assault and battery charge from some shitty paparazzo. “Kylo,” she whispered, and some of the tension went out of him, and he allowed her to tug him the short remaining distance to the rear seat of a silver Prius that was pulled up to the curb, waiting for them.

Rey didn’t allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief until the car had pulled away from the curb and started making its way east on Santa Monica Boulevard, towards the freeway, where they could hopefully lose anyone who might be trying to follow them.

Kylo was breathing hard next to her, his hands curling tight on his knees, still quite visibly trying to get a rein on his anger. He hadn’t put on his seatbelt yet. Rey leaned forward, snaking one arm between his, and grabbed it, bumping the metal tongue against his arm pointedly, until he took it and buckled it himself, though he still didn’t look at her.

Rey sat back and watched him, the arresting way his emotions carried through his whole body, from the way he pressed his full lips together to the way his broad chest heaved to the way his fingers trembled. And—damn her curiosity—but she wanted to  _ know _ what had set him off like this when he’d been capable of ignoring so many other incendiary questions.

“What did they say?” Rey blurted out, breathlessly, never taking her eyes off him.

A muscle jumped in his jaw again. “I’m not repeating it,” he ground out.

_ Was it about me?  _ Rey wanted to ask, even though she knew it was.  _ Why did it make you so angry?  _ She also wanted to ask, but she knew it would be a selfish line of questioning, forcing him to verbalize feelings he hadn’t volunteered yet, just to satisfy her own vanity at being capable of rousing that sort of protectiveness in a man like Kylo Ren.

Rey frowned in reaction to that moment of clarity—when had she gone from heartily disliking him to feeling gratified by his attempts to publicly, demonstrably, shield her from the uglier aspects of fame? And it _was_ gratification—that warm, pleasant feeling that had buzzed through her veins when he’d placed himself bodily between her and the first photographer, that was still buzzing through her veins at the memory of him ready to get in a fight for her. It was _stupid_ —she was well-accustomed to getting into her _own_ fights, and Kylo was famously short-tempered for a variety of reasons that didn’t involve her. But stupid or not, it made her _feel_ something, even if she wasn’t ready to fully examine the extent of that feeling at the moment.

Kylo sighed deeply, a welcome interruption to the line of thought Rey had ventured down. “I’m sorry.” He pulled his sunglasses off as he said it, like he wanted her to be able to read the sincerity on his face.

“For what?”

“For dragging you into my bullshit. For exposing you to those fucking... _ vultures _ .”

Rey bit back a smile, but apparently not well enough. Kylo’s eyes darted down to her mouth, then back up. “What?” He sounded suspicious.

Rey shook her head. “You didn’t drag me in. I walked in eyes wide open.”

Kylo blinked, taking that in. He looked doubtful, but chose not to argue the point.

Rey huffed out a breath. “I know what kind of scrutiny you’re under. That might have been my first personal experience with paparazzi, but I knew exactly what I might be getting into when I went to talk to you.” She reached out, placing a hesitant, gentle hand over his, stilling it against his thigh. “I make my own choices.”

Kylo’s breath hitched, and they both stared down at their hands, his pale against the dark fabric of his jeans, hers summer-freckled, and Rey found she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the fascinating size difference, how his pinkie finger was larger than her thumb—

Kylo’s fingers twitched, sliding between hers, and she was just curling hers around them in reaction when his phone buzzed in his pocket and they both broke apart, startled.

Rey leaned back in her seat as he answered the call, turning away from him to look out the window, attempting to regulate her breathing and focus on the parade of unpleasant conversations that were awaiting him at the end of the car ride, instead of unhelpful things like how warm his skin had felt against hers.

Heading downtown at peak rush hour on a weekday, traffic would have already been at a crawl, but with the added Olympic traffic on top of that, Rey knew they were settling in for a 45-minute car ride. Kylo spent the majority of the trip fielding phone call after phone call now that he’d turned his phone back on, what seemed to be everyone from his relay coaches to his assistant to various representatives from USA Swimming and the Olympic committees to multiple calls from Phasma. Rey tried to tune it all out, but after several minutes of attempting to occupy herself with the uninteresting scenery of endless concrete and other vehicles creeping by at a snail’s pace, she sighed and pulled her own phone out.   __

She’d told Unkar in no uncertain terms that she was taking a well-deserved morning off, since she wasn’t scheduled to swim until the second heat of the medley relay that evening, and yet she was still greeted by multiple missed calls from him and a voicemail commanding her to be at the aquatic center no later than 1 PM or there’d be hell to pay. Rey deleted the voicemail halfway through, anger flaring in her chest at how he still ordered her around like a child. She’d never been late to prep for competition a day in her life. It seemed that the more success she achieved, the more of a controlling tyrant Unkar was becoming, almost like he suspected she was planning to leave him. Rey bit her lip and stared, unseeing, down at her phone, her thoughts drifting to how exactly she was going to do that when the time came. In private might be better, so no one would witness his explosive reaction—or maybe in public would be better, just in case the news tipped him over the edge from verbal attacks into physical ones….

Her phone was shaking in her trembling fingers. Rey squeezed it tighter to still them, tipping her head back and taking in a deep, steadying breath. She could do this. She could. If Kylo could break free of years of secrets and blackmail and tell the world the truth, she could find the courage to do this one thing.

She turned to study him, the patrician line of his nose in profile, the little twitch that appeared under his left eye when he seemed particularly stressed. He was talking to Phasma again, or rather, Phasma was talking to him, and a bit of doubt began creeping in as Rey considered the vast world of difference between her and Kylo’s private, raw honesty in the graveyard, and what he might do when faced with a skeptical media and a publicist determined to spin the narrative to his advantage. Would he tell the truth, like she’d urged him to? It was impossible to say—she didn’t really know him, when it came down to it.

* * *

Security was tight at the Media Village on the USC campus, where only serious journalists were allowed, so Rey was able to breathe a sigh of relief when they exited the vehicle free and clear of anyone attempting to take invasive pictures of them.

Leia Organa was standing just inside the front doors of the campus building that was serving as the media center, her posture regal as always, but her hands were clasped together and there was an anxious look on her face. When her eyes landed on Kylo, all composure melted out of her and she rushed towards him.

“Ben,” she choked out, holding her arms out for him, and he hesitated for only a fraction of a moment before he crumpled into them, hunching down until he could hide his face in her shoulder. She brought her hands up to pet at his hair, murmuring softly into the crown of his head. Kylo was silent, though the way his broad shoulders shook and his hands trembled where they were wrapped loosely around his mother’s back betrayed him. The sight was so close to their televised embrace from earlier in the week that Rey once again felt like an intruder on a painfully private moment, magnified this time by the fact that it was unfolding in real time in front of her, just feet away.

Rey averted her eyes to give them a moment, and they landed on Kylo’s publicist, who was flicking through screens on her phone, leaning against the wall across the vestibule as though she’d been attempting to stay as far away from Leia as possible while they both waited for Kylo. As if drawn by Rey’s gaze, Phasma’s ice-blue eyes landed on her and narrowed in an assessing manner. Rey frowned and tried not to fidget under the scrutiny.

Phasma, already an intimidatingly tall woman, was also wearing three-inch heels, and when she pushed off the wall and approached them, she only seemed to grow in stature. Rey was taller than average for a woman but short for a swimmer, and she was used to feeling towered over, but Phasma was an Amazon. When she cleared her throat sharply and Kylo broke away from his mother and straightened to his full height, Phasma still had a few inches on him, and as she scowled down at him he looked oddly cowed.

“If you’re quite finished,” she said sharply, “the committee presidents and the chairwoman of the ethics commision are waiting for you in a conference room.” She placed special emphasis on the word  _ waiting _ , a pointed insinuation that these were not people who were accustomed to such a thing.

Kylo swallowed hard, turning to look down at his mother again. Her dark brown eyes were bright with unshed tears and she briefly reached up to press one hand against his cheek, holding his gaze as she gave a firm nod, some silent exchange of understanding passed between them.

Kylo tipped his chin in response, working his mouth for a moment, but when he spoke again it seemed he’d recovered his self-possession. “Phasma, find seats in the studio for my mother and Rey or I’m not doing the interviews.”

Phasma’s startled gaze darted between the three of them. “Kylo, the newsdesk doesn’t typically allow anyone who isn’t NBC staff—”

“They’ll make an exception.” His tone was soft, but resolute—it wasn’t even a command, just a statement of how things were going to be. “Somewhere I can see them. It’s non-negotiable.”

Phasma raised an eyebrow but pressed her lips together, and Rey could only imagine that the woman was literally biting her tongue to refrain from reminding her client that he was hardly in an advantageous position at the moment to make sweeping ultimatums. But she gave a terse nod, apparently coming to the conclusion that ensuring Kylo’s present happiness was advantageous to her long game.

Kylo suddenly swiveled his head to look at Rey, for the first time since they’d entered the building. “Will you stay?” he asked quietly, and his tone couldn’t be any more opposite of a command, his eyes so wide and earnest she could get lost in them.

“Yes,” she whispered, surprised he’d asked again when she’d already promised him she would. She cleared her throat. “For the first one. I have to get to the aquatic center directly after.” Fortunately, it was only a few minutes’ walk from the media center, and Greer had already promised to meet Rey in the locker room with her gym bag that she’d left behind in her room at the Athlete’s Village.

Kylo’s eyebrows twitched together, relief flooding his features, and his gaze flicked over her face briefly, like he was looking for something. When he finally turned away, Rey still wasn’t sure what it was or if he’d found it.

She and Leia followed him quietly up an elevator and down a hall before Kylo disappeared into a conference room, leaving them standing in the hall looking up at Phasma, who wore a severely displeased frown on her face. Rey sneaked a sidelong glance at Leia beside her, whose steely expression was even more formidable, despite the height disparity. The two women engaged in a brief stare-off while Rey rubbed at her bare arms, chilled by the sudden shift from dry outdoor heat to an overly air-conditioned building.  

Finally Phasma seemed to admit defeat. Spinning on her heel, she snapped over her shoulder. “Follow me.”

Rey and Leia exchanged a glance, then obeyed, trailing behind her at a distance. Rey startled when Leia’s hand closed around her elbow and she murmured, “How is he?”

Rey chewed on her lip, unsure how to answer such a loaded question. “Better. I think.”

Judging by the expression on Leia’s face, she wanted more than that. Rey tried again. “He told me...well, everything, basically. I think—I think he’s ready to face everyone.”

Leia gave a soft sigh. “I wish he’d told me everything last night instead of just the sanitized side of the story. I know I haven’t always been fully present in his life, but I’m trying now, and still he’d rather suffer in silence as long as possible.”

That didn’t seem entirely fair to Rey. “I’m sure he just didn’t know how to tell you. Maybe this was easier.”

Leia sighed again. “Maybe,” she conceded unhappily. Then, after a moment of silence, “Thank you, Rey. However you found him, however you got him here, it’s more than all the rest of us could have done.”

Rey didn’t quite know how to answer that, so she just gave a small, awkward smile.

When they reached the broadcasting studio, Phasma disappeared inside to explain the situation, then popped out to round them up and steer them through the doors and towards a pair of folding chairs stationed against a wall, to the side of a camera and in view of the overstuffed armchair Kylo would be sitting in for his interview with the NBC anchor. “Don’t move or speak,” Phasma instructed icily, drawing herself up to her full height, “or I’ll throw you out myself. Better yet, don’t even breathe. If I hear so much as a sniffle—”

“Yeah, we’ve got it,” Rey groused, which only served to earn her the full focus of Phasma’s imperious gaze. Rey met her eyes stubbornly, jutting her chin out, and Phasma’s expression turned calculating again, like Rey was a puzzle that needed to be worked out.

“You two should switch seats,” Phasma declared suddenly.

Rey couldn’t see any point in this, other than Phasma wanting to boss the two of them around on some sort of perverse power trip. “Why?” She crossed one leg over the other, sinking back in her seat.

But Leia tilted her head, gaze wandering towards the pair of armchairs in the middle of the room, then back to Rey. “All right.” She stood up, her blue caftan floating elegantly around her, and Rey blinked up at her, confused about why she was acquiescing so easily to Phasma’s demands.

There was a strange little smile hovering at the corner of Leia’s lips, and it was enough to prompt Rey to scootch over into Leia’s vacated chair, though she still didn’t understand why until she was settled, and realized her view from there towards the armchairs was completely unobscured—and vice versa. Rey glanced between the two other women suspiciously—why did they think it was  _ that  _ imperative that she be in Kylo’s line of sight?

She wasn’t going to get an answer to that. Phasma spun on her heel to go talk to one of the producers, and Mike Tirico, the primetime coverage newscaster who’d be interviewing Kylo, came over for a moment to introduce himself to Leia and Rey and assure them that the questions were all pre-approved and Kylo would have the power to direct the conversation.

Rey shifted uncomfortably in her chair as he directed this explanation just as much to her as to Kylo’s  _ mother _ —as if she was an equally important figure in his life. She could understand how it might appear that way considering she was  _ here _ , but she didn’t even know what she  _ was  _ to Kylo—it wasn’t like she was his  _ girlfriend _ —

“I hear I’ll be interviewing you tomorrow night after your last swim,” Mike was saying, smiling at her.

“Oh—yes!” Rey said, though her press schedule was so grueling she was never able to keep track of which interview she was doing when until Unkar told her about them just before. “Pressure’s on to get gold, I guess.”

Mike laughed. “I’d say the five medals you already have are more than enough to prove your creds.”

When he left to prep for the interview, Leia and Rey sat in tense silence for what felt like an eternity. Rey itched to pull her phone out but refrained for fear Phasma might see and confiscate it, so she tried to occupy herself by mentally running through her leg of her upcoming relay heat, but it was hard to concentrate when she was distracted by thoughts of whether or not Kylo was choosing to tell the officials in that conference room the truth, and what he’d say in the interview.

* * *

When the object of her worry finally made his appearance in the studio, it was clear he’d been in a makeup chair, the dark circles under his eyes now nowhere to be seen. His hair had been restyled too, into the sort of effortless-looking messy waves that weren’t effortless at all, and he’d changed into a slim-cut black suit. With nothing else to occupy her, Rey found her eyes lingering on him—she’d never seen him dressed so formally in person, only in magazine spreads or on TV. He’d become painfully human to her in the last few days—she’d watched him crying and held his shaking hand in hers just hours before, after all—so it was  _ ridiculous  _ that the sight of him in that suit—which somehow made his legs look longer and his shoulders broader than usual—left her mouth dry.

The power of her stare must have attracted his attention, because his eyes snapped to hers over the shoulder of the producer he was talking to, and before she could stop herself Rey’s eyes skittered away from his, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. She rubbed her palms self-consciously against her cutoffs, feeling embarrassingly underdressed in this room full of professionals.

Leia stilled her fidgeting with a firm hand on top of hers, and another of her small, enigmatic smiles, and Rey had the mortifying sensation that Leia knew exactly what—or  _ who _ , rather—was prompting her reaction.

Kylo moved to the armchairs in the middle of the room, absentmindedly tugging his suit jacket into place as he took a seat, then leaned forward, nodding gravely to Mike Tirico, who was seated across from him and telling him something Rey couldn’t hear. Within moments, the cameras were rolling, broadcasting live, and the newscaster was introducing the special segment before the camera cut wide.

“Kylo, thank you for being here with us today.”

Kylo gave a silent nod.

“You made a big career change this morning when you parted ways with your coach. Rumors are flying around about that and this breaking news about your grandfather Anakin Skywalker, and we know you wanted to take this opportunity to clarify a few things.”

Kylo cleared his throat quietly. “Yes, Mike. The coaching change has been a long time coming. Without getting into too much detail, it was an untenable working relationship for many different reasons.”

“But—I have to ask—why now specifically, in the middle of competition?”

“If you’re asking if it was an impulsive decision, it wasn’t. The timing was impulsive, the decision wasn’t. It was the right decision, personally and professionally.”

“I’d be remiss to not also ask about the coincidental timing of this doping scandal with your grandfather coming out after fifty years, the very same morning. Do you have a sense how this might affect your own career, or—what do you want everyone to know about your own integrity as a swimmer?”

“I just got out of a meeting with the IOC, so I’m going to let them get into some of the specifics when they make their official statement, but I want to go on the record and say I have never and will never take performance-enhancing drugs, and the IOC will back me up on that. Testing is incredibly stringent now, in a way it wasn’t in my grandfather’s time. I am...aware that I’ve made a career of comparing myself to him, in many ways, and that many people will no doubt continue to associate me with him and possibly even question my own swimming records. But I am my own person, I am not my grandfather, and this is where our paths diverge.”

Rey was leaning forward, elbows braced on her knees, hanging on his every word even as a knot of anxiety began constricting her airway and she found it hard to breathe.  _ He wasn’t going to do it _ . After everything they’d said to each other, after the deal they’d made, he was taking the coward’s way out after all and was sitting here on national television, all wide-eyed faux vulnerability as he told millions of people only half the truth, he was a fucking  _ liar,  _ what was she even  _ doing _ here, she was going to leave the second the cameras stopped rolling and never speak to him again in her entire life—

It was difficult to hear anything beyond the angry ringing in her ears but it sounded as though Mike Tirico was starting to wrap up the interview, and Rey’s hands were in white-knuckled fists and it was taking everything in her to stay still and—

“Mike, I have something else to say.”

Rey’s eyes shot up to Kylo’s face. He swallowed hard, pressing his lips together, and the host affably encouraged him to continue.

Kylo took a shaky breath in. “The timing wasn’t a coincidence. I knew—I’ve known for six years, and I chose not to tell anyone. The truth coming out is the price I knowingly paid for parting ways with my coach.”

This admission was enough to stun even a seasoned sportscaster briefly into silence, and the entire studio was dead quiet for one long, extended moment. Rey’s eyes were riveted on Kylo—as everyone’s were—the subtle tremble of his lower lip, the luminous wet-dark of his eyes, and in that moment they slid to hers and he looked at her—just at her—held her gaze, unblinking, and it was as intensely as he’d probably ever looked at her, setting off a confusing maelstrom of emotions in her chest—shame for thinking the worst of him, sheer  _ relief  _ to the point that she was physically trembling with it, and she felt her lips tipping up into a small, private smile—she was proud—she was  _ so proud _ of him for putting everything on the line, and she wanted him to  _ know.  _

And it seemed that he did—eyes still fixed on hers, he tipped his chin down, the movement so subtle no one else would have noticed it, and he took a deep breath in, shoulders straightening as though they’d shed a heavy weight as he turned to face the interviewer—and the world—again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaand, at long last, we're BACK. I upped the total chapter count a bit but it's still an estimate since I tend towards the overly wordy and everything always ends up being longer than I originally plan it to be (like this chapter, for instance lmao).
> 
> So the 2024 and 2028 Olympics host cities were finalized well after I started writing this fic, but now we know 2024 will be in Paris and 2028 will be in LA but for the sake of this fic we're going to pretend this is an alternate universe where the order is flipped because I'm lazy and I don't want to go back and fix all the dates.
> 
> Also, post-TLJ, it is literally KILLING ME not to call him Ben in this fic, to the point where I had to keep going back and editing out wayward Bens that slipped out when they were supposed to be Kylos, but I've always had a plan for when he transitions back to that name and I'm STICKING TO IT even if it hurts me lmao.
> 
> Soundtrack songs for this chapter are Star Spangled, How Hard I Try, and Young Blood, and you can listen to the full soundtrack [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/greysecondchances/playlist/2Q6nvF3a6iRQgASKDU8CaH?si=C7XzASjsSWKY2HW_5Kdqjg).
> 
> Please leave a comment if you have time and I SWEAR I will not make you wait another 11 months for the next chapter lmao


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